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' ' THE 

HONOURABLE JANE 


BY 


ANNIE THOMAS/^' 


AUTHOR OF 


“a passion in tatters,” “the love of a lady,” “he COMETH 
NOT, SHE SAID,” “ LE BEAU SABREUR,’ 


<»TTr l^TTATT CADOI^TTIS ” ^^THE ROLL OF 


HONOUR,” “THAT OTHER WOMAN,” ETC. 


yy 



NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 









^Tz?" ■ 

•Os'idk, 


Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. 
[Al/ rights reserved.], 


/ 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE NEWS COMES. 

There is an unwonted stir one morning in June in the 
ordinarily quiet, not to say stagnant, household of 
Major the Honourable John Herries. Jane, the 
youngest daughter of the house-, opens her slumber- 
laden eyes and blinks them with a mixture of alarm 
and bewilderment at the dazzling sunbeams which 
are streaming in at her uncurtained window, as after 
a sound as of a mighty and rushing wind a young 
lady rushes into the room, her white cashmere tea- 
gown streaming several yards behind her, with the 
words, — 

“ Grandpapa is dead ! Get up, you lazy little pig, 
and come and congratulate papa on being Lord Royd- 
more ! ” 

In response to this adjuration, Jane slips out of bed 
and into a threadbare, red flannel dressing-gown, 
from the hem of which her shapely, slim young legs 
protrude for many inches. It is the first time within 
her memory that death has entered the family realms, 
and she is astonished and a little disgusted with her- 
self for not feeling shocked at the intelligence. She 
feels that she is called upon to say something, and 
looks at her excited sister for an inspiration. Some- 


6 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


thing in that sister’s pretty, frankly expressive face 
distracts her mind from the sorrowful part of the sub- 
ject, and leads her to say, — 

“ You look quite cross about it, Flo ! ” 

“Cross ! ” says Florence, with an unmistakably ill- 
tempered stamp of a prettily-slippered foot. ‘ ‘ Cross ! 
You little noodle, you don’t expect me to look pleased 
and grateful for the good luck having come just too 
late for me to share in it. What should I be but 
‘ cross ’ at the idea of having been thrown away all 
these years in Bath, and deluded at the last into 
such a marriage as I am going to make to-morrow, 
in despair of getting anything better. Don’t grin at 
me.” 

“I wasnl grinning. I wouldn’t be so heartless, 
with grandpapa just dead, and you just going to be 
married ! ” Jane says indignantly. 

“Well, don’t gape at me, then. Oh! you lucky 
girl I To think that_y6>M will come in for it all 1 You, 
who haven’t an idea of making the best of such looks 
as you have, while I shall be buried alive and half- 
boiled in a hole among the Somersetshire hills. Why, 
oh, why didn’t grandpapa die six months ago, before 
I promised to marry Geoffrey Graves .? It will make 
me sick when I see your name, ‘ The Honourable 
Jane Herries,’ at all sorts of fashionable functions 
that I’ve never been given the chance of attending. 
You’ll be presented, too I I feel it. It’s a shame 
that all this good should fall to your lot, and that I 
should have had none of it — I, the eldest daughter, 
and ever so much the prettiest. ” 

She pauses, panting in her indignant agitation at 
the thought of the desperate injustice with which fate 
has treated her, and Jane strives to offer a modicum 
of comfort. 

“You are the prettiest, that’s something, you know. 
And you’ve always liked. Geoffrey’s place so much, 
and he will let you do as you like ; and he’s rich, 
quite as rich as papa will be, I should think.” 

“Please don’t talk about things you don’t under- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


7 


stand,” Florence replies haughtily. “I liked his 
place when I had nothing before me but the prospect 
of stewing on in Bath for an unlimited number of 
years. As for his being rich, he seemed so to me 
yesterday, when I was only the daughter of a poor, 
half pay Major. But now I am the Honourable 
Florence Herries, eldest daughter of Lord Roydmore ; 
and when I think of how well / should have faced 
the position you will have when you come out, I could 
throw this brush at your head. Are you going to 
condole with and congratulate papa ? ” 

Jane would give every small possession she has in 
the world to avoid this ceremony, but her sister's 
sway over her is absolute. 

“I hardly know what to say to papa about it. 
You see grandpapa was always so cross to us all. I 
wonder if he will scold much in Heaven ? ” 

Florence laughs pettishly. 

“Amiability is certainly not the rock on which we 
Herries split, ” she says contemptuously. ‘ ‘ When papa 
sent for me to tell me the news just now, he sent a 
regular royal salute of strong language into the air at the 
idea of my wedding-breakfast being wasted. It’s too 
late to countermand it, you see, and still we must put 
off all the guests. I offered to put off the wedding, 
but papa jumped at me, and said he ‘ would have no 
nonsense of that kind. ’ I never in all my life saw a 
girl do her hair as hideously as you do, Jane. Oh, 
dear, if I had been going to stay at home I should 
have got papa to send you to a school in Brussels to 
polish off your angles and have your hair combed 
into becomingness. You never can be grateful 
enough to me for marrying and getting out of your 
way, now your way is going to be pleasant. You 
never can do enough for me in return. Why, if I had 
stayed at home I shouldn’t have let you come out till 
you were twenty, and now papa says he shall put 
you at the head of the London house at once. Ridi- 
culous ! and you only seventeen ! ” 

While her sister has been talking, Jane has made 


8 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


her toilette as best she can under the circumstances 
of the severity which characterises all the arrange- 
ments of her apartment. Her looking-glass has a flaw 
in it which 'makes one side of her face look puffy, 
while the other looks pallid and wizened. Moreover, 
the regulating screw has vanished, and the glass has 
to be propped into position by a book, or a brush, or 
a boot, or any other article that comes handy. If 
her face got a fair reflection of itself, Jane would not 
go down to breakfast each day with the lowly opinion 
she now holds of her own personal appearance. 

‘ ‘ Is papa busy — or has he anything to do } '' she 
asks hesitatingly, as she accompanies her sister down- 
stairs to their father’s study, — a room in which he 
breakfasts, but never reads. Newspapers are the only 
literature that interest him, and these he sees at the 
pump-room every day when he goes to drink that 
glass of nasty water which it is supposed has regu- 
lated his liver for the last ten years. 

“He really will have something to do — he is going 
up to London at once, so he won’t be a bit ^ busy ’ 
this morning,” Florence says reassuringly. Then, 
together, the sisters step into their father s presence, 
and poor Jane flounders into error at once by greeting 
him as ‘ ‘ Lord Roy dmore. ” 

‘ ‘ I’m not that until after the funeral, ” he says- test- 
ily, pushing away his plate, on which an untasted 
omelette, steaming forth its savoury odours, has just 
been placed before him. “ Florence, why don’t you 
see that your sister has decent morning dresses } If 
there’s one thing I hate on a woman more than 
another, it’s a cotton dress — a starched cotton dress 
that crackles ! ” 

He pauses, draws the hot-water plate with the 
omelette upon it before him again, and glances 
peevishly from one to the other of his daughters as 
he begins his repast. 

Florence has thrown herself negligently but very 
gracefully into the easiest chair in his room. Jane 
is standing, shifting her weight awkwardly from one 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


9 


foot to the other. They have been both kept in awe 
by their father’s fretfulness and habit of fault-find- 
ing from their cradles, but Florence is going to be 
emancipated to-morrow, and fears him no longer. 

“ I thought you didn’t care what Jane wore ; you 
always told me to make the best of myself, and dress 
Jane cheaply till she was marriageable— and she cer- 
tainly isn’t that yet,” Miss Herries explains. 

The new Lord Roydmore looks at his eldest 
daughter dubiously, tastes the omelette, finds it 
delicious, and carefully conceals all expression of 
satisfaction thereat ; indicates by a quick motion of 
his head to Jane that he is ready for his coffee, and 
as she sugars and creams it to the requisite point of 
richness, says, — 

“Jane is a different matter now. She will join 
me in town directly after the funeral and I shall expect 
to see her decently dressed. You must go and order 
all that she wants to-day ” 

“Papa ! I have so much to do for myself My 
things are not half packed, and as I am to be married 
to-morrow, I must think of myself first. ” 

“You’ve been thinking of yourself ‘first’ all your 
life,” he shouts ; “to my certain knowledge and cost, 
you have been ordering and packing your wedding 
outfit for the last three months. The bills that have 
come in from Millsom Street would have turned my 
hair grey if I hadn’t fortunately come into — I mean, 
if Providence had not thought fit to remove your 
grandfather. Have you thought of your sister once 
while you’ve been gratifying your own extravagant 
tastes, or has all the money gone to adorn your- 
self” 

Florence’s grey eyes flash ominously. Her father’s 
habit of scolding about trifles has never been so irk- 
some to her as it is to-day, when she is on the brink 
of freedom. Detestable as the prospect of her mar- 
riage has suddenly become to her, she contemplates 
it with a sense of relief now, as his jarring tones fall 
upon her ears in unreasonable fault-finding. 


10 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“If I am selfish, I am not silly enough to show it 
to all the world, papa. I have taken care that Jane 
shall have a lovely costume to wear at my wedding. 
I went without a tea-gown — a lovely, pale, sea-green 
plush tea-gown, trimmed with lace that looks like 
foam — in order to get Jane a pretty costume. And 
now you call me selfish ! ” 

Jane’s colour had been rising, and her violet eyes 
have become full nearly to overflowing during this 
altercation between her father and sister. 

‘ ‘ I am not worth all this trouble that you are taking 
about nie, now when you are both so busy and have 
so many more important things to think of. Don’t 
scold Flo, papa ; poor dear, its bad enough that she’ll 
have no breakfast, and such a little quiet wedding ’’ 

“You’re a little fool, but a good-hearted one,” her 
father interrupts, looking at her curiously ; and Flor- 
ence gives her head an impatient toss as she puts 
in,— 

“It is easy to be ‘good-hearted’ when you are 
going to have everything that heart cap desire. Oh ! 
I hear Geoffrey ; why on earth couldn’t he have left 
us in peace for to-day ? ” 

The next moment the study door is thrown open 
with violence, and an utter disregard of the state of 
the new Lord Roydmore’s nerves, and a tall, well- 
grown, fair, clean-shaven young man of seven or 
eight and twenty comes breezily into the room. He 
tries to look distressed as he takes his future father- 
in-law’s proffered hand, but his eyes gleam with joy 
as they light on Florence. 

“You won’t let this — this sad event put off our 
marriage for a time, will you, sir } ” he asks, anx- 
iously ; and as he hears the answer “Most certainly 
not,” he turns, takes the unwilling Florence in his 
arms, and kisses her rapturously. 

“ It was never going to be anything very grand, 
but it will be a hole-and-corner sort of wedding now,” 
Florence grumbles, but her lover is too much en- 


THE HOATO [/TABLE JANE. II 

chanted at the prospect of getting her at once to be 
depressed by her lack of enthusiasm. 

“My darling/’ he murmurs, “ what does it matter 
how it is done, so long as you are made mine, my 
very own, at once ? ” 


CHAPTER II. 

THE HONEYMOON. 

When Lord Roydmore returned from town after mak- 
ing all needful preparations for his father’s funeral, 
on the night before Florence’s wedding, he called his 
two daughters to him, and distributed between them 
a fair quantity ofvaluable jewellery that had belonged 
to his mother. 

‘ ‘ The Roydmore diamonds and the rest of the 
family jewels will, of course, descend in due course 
of time to your brother for his wife, if he ever has 
one. But these were your grandmother’s private 
ornaments, and I will divide them between you as 
justly as I can,” he explained, with more feeling than 
he usually displayed. Upon which Florence had 
hung round his neck fondly, and whispered an en- 
treaty that she, ‘ ‘ as the eldest, might have first 
choice.” 

“No, no, nothing of the sort,” he said sharply; 
“I have done them up in parcels of equal value. 
Without seeing the contents of these parcels, you shall 
draw for them. ” 

“Jane is very young to wear handsome jewellery,” 
Florence remarked disapprovingly ; “ besides, she is 
sure to come in for a lot more when mamma’s aunt 
dies. ” 

“Flo is quite welcome to my share, papa,” Jane 
interposed. ‘ ‘ I can’t fancy myself in necklaces and 
bracelets and rings.” 

“You’ll ‘fancy’ yourself in them fast enough,” 


12 THE HONOURABLE JANE, 

Florence said petulantly ; ‘ ‘ and please don’t be so 
ultra-humble and generous, Jane ; it won’t do me 
any good.” 

“Now draw, draw lots and get this over,” their 
father put in with the well-known Herries frown and 
asperity. Whereupon they obeyed him without delay, 
with the result that Florence became the possessor 
of a ruby necklet with a diamond pendant, while to 
Jane’s lot there fell an exquisite necklace of perfectly 
matched pearls. 

With a brief “Thank you, papa,” Florence turned 
to leave the room, but paused at the door to say, — 
“Before you wear your pearls, you had better 
protect your neck from the sun for a summer or 
two. ” 

“Let her have them, papa,” Jane begged, as soon 
as the door had closed behind her sister, but he checked 
her, and closed the subject by saying, — 

“fought to have crushed the cursed selfishness 
out of her before this. It will be her ruin if Geoffrey 
is not firm. Now leave me, my child. I must write 
to your brother. You are growing very like your 
mother, Jane ; and those pearls were always meant 
for her by my mother. I am glad they are yours. ” 
“Thank you, papa.” 

The words were precisely the same as those 
spoken by Florence, but there was a world more 
meaning in them. Jane’s voice trembled with affec- 
tionate gratitude — because her father had spoken to 
her in accents of unprecedented kindness, not be- 
cause he had given her a valuable pearl necklace. 
The girl had been so repressed by him during the 
long years of his embittering strife with poverty and 
his futile efforts to keep up a position that was 
always in danger of being buried beneath bankruptcy, 
that she had always striven to efface herself Flor- 
ence, on the other hand, had always brought herself 
well to the fore, and had invariably given her father 
to understand that he owed her a great deal for hav- 
ing brought her into such an extremely uncongenial 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A HE. 


13 

position in the world. Accordingly, Jane had got all 
the kicks, and Florence all the ha'pence (they had 
been very few), with this result, that now, when he 
was able, to do something tangibly good for his 
daughters, Jane was grateful for the goodness, while 
Florence took it merely as her due. 

The day of the Honourable Florence's marriage 
was a weariness and disappointment to her from be- 
ginning to end. There had never been much of a 
function contemplated — the finances of the half-pay 
Major would not have stood the strain. Still, she 
had looked forward to wearing a rich white satin 
Duchesse dress, trimmed with real old point, the gift 
of Geoffrey's mother, before the envious eyes of many 
of her dear Bath girl friends, who had hitherto cut 
her down in the matter of costumes. She had also 
looked forward to seeing several disappointed mam- 
mas and daughters, who ^ad more or less artlessly 
tried to secure Geoffrey Graves for themselves, at the 
wedding breakfast. But now she was shorn of these 
joys through her grandfather’s death. There was no 
bridal dress, there were no wedding guests or wed- 
ding breakfast, and it seemed to the few who wit- 
nessed the ceremony that the bridegroom's expression 
of triumphant happiness was singularly out of place 
on the face of a man who stood at the altar with such 
a discontented-looking bride. 

‘ ‘ I had ten times rather be going up to town with 
papa and you, and seeing about getting the town 
house in order," the newly-made Mrs. Graves said, 
as they lingered for a few minutes in the bedroom of 
the latter, waiting for the carriage that was to take 
them on the first stage of their honeymoon journey. 

“ There is a country house too ? Papa won't 
always stay in London, will he.?" Jane asked anx- 
iously. 

“Of course there's a country house. You’ve heard 
of Roydmore often enough, haven't you ? But papa 
doesn't like Roydmore. Now, take my advice, Jane ; 
when you begin to entertain, have plenty of awfully 


u 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


attractive young married women about. Cultivate 
them, and keep clear of widows and girls, or one of 
them will marry papa, and then where will you be?'' 

‘ ‘ Marry ! Papa marry again ! Absurd. " 

“ Not at all. Now he's Lord Roydmore, hundreds 
of girls would rather marry him than — than Geoffrey, 
for instance,” Geoffrey's bride added with a laugh. 

Jane was conscious of receiving a shock both to 
her heart and delicacy as her sister said this. But 
whether it was at the possibility of her father's mar- 
rying again, or at the lack of anything like loving 
pride in the newly-made wife's mention of her hus- 
band, the girl could not determine for the moment. 
Then there came hurried leave-takings, a hearty kiss 
from her new brother-in-law, and the married pair 
were whirled away, leaving Jane feeling very bewil- 
dered and lonely at the loss of the lovely sister who 
had always tyrannised over her. 

The house in which the Herries had lived in Bath 
for the last sixteen years had grown woefully shabby 
in the course of their occupation. The houses even 
of the best-intentioned people are apt to do this when 
their current needs absorb the whole of their incomes. 
The tables and chairs had grown ricketty, and had 
never been either mended or replaced. The carpets 
had gone threadbare in some rooms, and completely 
worn themselves off the floors in others. The wall- 
papers had faded and become damp-stained. Ne- 
glect, the frequent offspring of poverty, had set its 
unattractive seal on every nook and corner of the 
house. Still, to Jane every nook and corner was 
dear, partly from association, and partly because she 
had never known any other home. 

To Florence, every nook and corner had been 
hateful, and so some months ago she had gladly 
hailed the prospect of getting away from them to 
become the mistress of one of the most picturesque 
and best-kept places in Somersetshire, “The Court,” 
Geoffrey Graves’ very delightful, very aristocratic, 
but perhaps rather dull and secluded old home. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


15 

She had hailed the prospect gladly, but not with 
any profession of love or gratitude to the man who 
had opened it up to her. With an amount of frank- 
ness that to a less infatuated lover than Geoffrey 
Graves would have been painful, she had permitted 
him to see that she took him merely as an appendage 
to his place, and that, could she have detached him 
from The Court and retained the latter, she would 
have done so delightedly. However, he had reso- 
lutely shut his eyes to her unflattering method of 
treating him, and had pursued his wooing with as 
much — perhaps with more — zeal and energy than is 
ordinarily displayed even by warmly encouraged 
lovers. 

To his mother, who had herself been an affection- 
ately adoring as well as a dutiful wife, and to his 
sisters, who were good, plain, and the reverse of 
fascinating, Florence and her insolently exercised 
witcheries had been hateful from the first. With 
more blunt honesty than tact or discretion, they had 
pointed out to him her vanity, her selfishness, the 
greed with which she always monopolised the loaves 
and fishes, leaving little or nothing for her younger 
sister, and her utter unsuitability in every way to 
be the wife of a country gentleman whose income 
required prudent, thrifty handling if the traditional 
state of The Court was to be maintained. Geoffrey 
thought her beauty justified the vanity, and as for 
the selfishness, greed and thriftlessness, they were 
qualities which he distinctly refused to admit she 
possessed. His love for her was beautiful in its 
strength, trust and intensity. There were moments 
when her coldness made his heart feel chilled, but 
they were brief, for he was always prompt with the 
explanation to himself, that this was only the sweet 
modesty and reserve of a pure, high-bred English 
girl, and that she would well requite him for it when 
she became his wife. His awakening from this 
beautifully-delusive dream was not a long-drawn-out 
process by any means. His wife showed him a taste 


l6 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

of her quality on their wedding-day, when he made 
his first suggestion to her as her husband. It had 
been arranged that the young couple should spend a 
fortnight in Scotland, and then give themselves a 
week in London before they came back to settle for 
good at The Court. But this programme no longer 
suited the lady, who in the interim had become Lord 
Roydmore's daughter. 

“I don’t mean to go to Scotland, Geoffrey,” she 
said decidedly, when he spoke about taking tickets 
to go north by the night mail ; “and I won’t put my 
foot in London until papa has a house fit to receive 
me in, and the days of mourning for grandpapa are 
over. We’ll go to Paris.” 

“But, my darling, we sha’n’t enjoy ourselves, or 
have half as much fun there as in London. I know 
London so well, and in Paris I shall be all at sea. ” 

He was not strong , in any language but his own 
mother tongue, this fine young English gentleman, 
who had been to a public school, and to Oxford ; and 
he knew that humiliation would be his portion, to say 
nothing of intense weariness, if Florence persisted in 
dragging him to Paris, and took him to theatres where 
he would not understand a word the actors were 
saying. But Florence was not to be turned from her 
new scheme. 

“Oh, you’ll enjoy yourself very well, Geoffrey; 
we’ll go to races and things of that sort on Sundays, 
and brush off our insular cobwebs. Don’t be alarmed ; 
I’ll do all the order-giving and talking. To Paris we’ll 
go ; I’ve made up my mind to it.” 

He offered but faint opposition after this, for above 
all things he desired to please her, and to keep the 
frowns away from her lovely face. But all the time 
he was vaguely conscious that he was a fool for sur- 
rendering his plans so readily to her caprices, and the 
idea of Paris was obnoxious to him. . 

Not more obnoxious than the reality. He knew 
no one, and was perfectly ignorant of what were the 
right things to do, and where were the right places 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


17 


to go. Florence enjoyed the shops, and the theatres, 
and the open-air gaieties like a child ; but young Mr. 
Graves sustained the reputation his countrymen have 
gained, and took his pleasures very sadly. 

It was like finding water in a dry land to him when 
one day he met an old schoolfellow, now a dashing 
and distinguished infantry man. This Captain Staf- 
ford had been a hero in Geoffrey s eyes in the old 
school days, on account of his skill and prowess in all 
kinds of athletic and field sports. He was more of 
a hero than ever now to the simple country gentle- 
man, who had never seen a shot fired in anger in his 
life — for Harry Stafford had seen some smart service 
lately, had distinguished himself for personal gallan- 
try, and wore the grandest recognition of that gallan- 
try which an Englishman can gain — the V. C. 

Beyond this. Captain Stafford was a brilliant and 
accomplished gentleman, who knew his Paris well, 
and who, consequently, made life there a very differ- 
ent thing to what it had been before his advent to the 
two benighted people who had been merely groping 
about before he came. He was “good to be seen 
with," also. Every one who knew him was proud, 
in these days, to be recognised by gallant, dashing, 
handsome Harry Stafford. Accordingly, Florence 
decreed, and Geoffrey assented, not at all unwillingly, 
that they should spend yet another fortnight in the 
City of Pleasure. Captain Stafford was the perfec- 
tion of a guide, and Geoffrey kneiw him to be one 
of the best and most honourable fellows in the world. 
Nevertheless, he did sometimes experience some out- 
sider sensations when his wife and Captain Stafford 
were laughing heartily at some delicate pleasantry 
in a play, which to Mr. Graves was a mere jumble of 
unintelligible gibberish. 

“He is the handsomest and finest, as well as the 
most fascinating fellow I ever saw or dreamt of," Mrs. 
Graves admitted to herself, when the day of parting 
came, and she was shaking hands with him for the 
last time. “Now, if Geoffrey were like him, I 

% 


l8 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

shouldn't so much mind going back to The Court.” 

She sighed petulantly as she thought this, and the 
sound made Captain Stafford look up suddenly and 
meet her eyes. Whatever he read there it displeased 
him apparently, for he turned from her rather haugh- 
tily and coldly, and directed all his attention, during 
the last moments of their being together, to Geof- 
frey. 

“Come and see us in September," the latter was 
saying heartily. “I've never gone in for breeding 
pheasants, as I told you, but the place swarms with 
birds. " 

“ And by the time you come I will have learnt the 
guitar, and then we can have some duets," Mrs. 
Graves put in as an extra inducement ; and there 
came a very curious look in her eyes, a sort of danger- 
signal, when he made answer coolly, — 

“ Thank you, Mrs. Graves, but I’m boor enough to 
devote myself entirely to my gun in September. I only 
fool with the guitar when I can get neither shooting 
nor hunting." 

“You shall always do quite as you please at The 
Court," she said smilingly. “I mean to make it a 
perfect Liberty Hall to those guests of whom I 
approve. ” 

“And a perfect Hell to those whom you don’t like, 
including your husband, " Captain Stafford thought, as 
he turned away from the beautiful woman, to whom 
he had taken one of those instinctive dislikes which 
no amount of flattering courtesy from the disliked one 
can abolish. 

“She’s not half good enough for poor old Geof," 
the fine, keen-sighted soldier thought angrily. ‘ ‘ And 
he thinks her an angel, and has tears in his eyes 
when he speaks of her sweet goodness in marrying 
him. She’ll play the devil with him in some way,' 
but I don’t think it will be by intrigue ; she’s too sel- 
fish to risk anything for any human being. But he’ll 
have to repent having won his angel in some way or 
other, if I am not very much mistaken. ’’ 


THE HONOtJRABLE JANE. 

Meantime, Geoffrey was assuring Florence that, 
happy as he had been in the companionship of his 
old friend, it was an absolute relief to see the last of 
him. “For now I shall have you to myself again, 
my own,’' he said ardently. 

“ Only till we get to The Court, Geof,” she replied 
coolly. “ I am not going to live like a nun, simply 
because grandpapa died six weeks ago. ” 

“ It won’t be a very conventual kind of existence, 
considering you will have your husband with you, 
dear. ” 

“Oh ! you don’t count, ’’she said brusquely. “We 
should rust, and rasp each other horribly if we lived 
the Darby and Joan life. The best authorities on the 
subject declare that monotony is the bane of married 
life, and I believe them ! ” 

“ I could never feel it monotonous while I had yoii 
Flo.” 

“Then you must be a very dull and plodding- 
minded person, Geof, and the sooner you grow less 
stolid the better. Now, I love change and excite- 
ment, and I’m honest enough to admit it. I shall 
like The Court well enough while it’s all new to me, 
but as soon as it begins to pall upon me, I shall go 
up to town and stay with papa.” 

“ You can’t be always running away from your 
own home,” he said, more sternly than his wife had 
ever heard him speak before. But that fearless young 
lady was by no means crushed by his displeasure. 

“We’ll argue the matter out when I want to run 
away,” she laughed ; “but I can assure you I am not 
going to let Jane reap all the advantages which are 
gained by papa’s coming to the title and property.” 

“Poor Jane ! she hasn’t had a very lively existence 
hitherto,” Geoffrey said, smiling as he recalled the 
way in which Jane had been wont to scuffle out of 
the way of smart visitors into the shade, in order that 
the shabbiness of her skimpy little frocks might not 
bring discredit upon the Herries’ household. 


20 


THE HONOURABLE JANM. 


“ Why do you say ‘poor’ Jane? ” his wife interro- 
gated sharply; “it was rather ‘poor me,’ I think, 
in those horrible old Bath days. I have a natural 
love of beauty, and order, and refinement. Jane, 
would just as soon wear hideous things as not, and I 
can tell you her room was like a rag shop unless I 
stood over her and made her tidy it up. ‘ Poor Jane.’ 
indeed ! Why, she’s one of the luckiest girls in Lon- 
don, and if she only makes the best of herself, she 
ought to make a capital marriage. Now I am cut 
out of all that, yet you don’t pity me ! ” 

“ It was not possible that Flo could be serious in 
saying this,” Geoffrey Graves told himself as he stared 
at her in a piteously pleading dismay. He said 
nothing, but he put out his hand and took hers, and 
Florence snatched it away angrily, declaring that he 
was pressing the big diamond ring (one he had given 
her on the auspicious occasion of their betrothal) into 
her finger. She must be over-fatigued with the re- 
action after her late gaieties, and bored by the travel- 
ling, the . good-hearted fellow assured himself. Still, 
he felt vaguely hurt and disappointed that she could 
rebuff him so. 


CHAPTER HI. 

TWELVE MONTHS AFTER. 

During the year which had passed since the Honour- 
able JaneHerries had packed up her scanty wardrobe, 
and reluctantly bidden adieu to the shabby home 
where she had never been remarkably happy nor free, 
nor treated with the slightest amount of consideration’ 
much had occurred which it might reasonably have 
been anticipated would have altered her greatly. 
Altered she was externally, without doubt. The 
beauty, that had not been very apparent in the old 
Bath days, when she wore the badly-fitting dresses, 


THE Honourable jane. 


21 


that were either her more capable sister’s ‘‘ cast-off’s,” 
or the work of some fifth-rate dressmaker, was done 
justice to now by some of the best-built gowns and 
habits in town. The warm chestnut hair, with a 
decided kink — not a curl — in it, which of yore she had 
worn generally in a tangle, was arranged, in these 
halcyon days, by the deft hands of an artistic maid, 
in a way that brought out all the subtle charm of 
Jane’s mobile, irregular-featured ypung face. Her 
eyes had always been beautiful. No amount of 
shabbiness and untidiness had marred the loveliness 
of those starry, violet eyes that were encircled so be- 
comingly by thick, long, dark lashes. But even her 
eyes had gained anew expression in the course of the 
last twelve months. They were sweeter, but less 
shy. They flashed and sparkled less, perhaps, but 
their depths held greater pathos. In fact, their owner 
had learnt to feel more widely, keenly, and strongly 
about certain things. And through those windows 
of the soul, her eyes, many of her feelings could be 
discerned. 

But in simplicity of manner and singleness of heart, 
in straightforwardness and unselfishness, she was 
still the Jane of the old Bath days, who had volun- 
teered to give up her richest possession — the pearl 
necklace — to her imperiously exacting sister. 

The days of mourning for the old gentleman whose 
death had rejoiced and enriched them all were over 
now, and Lord Roydmore and his only unmarried 
daughter had just been launched upon the fiercely 
rolling tide of the London season. It was just the 
commencement of June, and Jane was looking for- 
ward, with a mixture of palpitating eagerness and 
gruesome nervousness, to the next drawing-room, at 
which she was to be presented. Hitherto her going 
out had been of the soberest and quietest. A little 
family dinner now and again at her great-aunt’s, old 
]Mrs. Bathurst’s, a few evenings with her father at the 
opera and theatres, some dull musical at-homes, and 
frequent little luncheon parties at the house ofafriencj 


22 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


of her father’s, had been all she had seen of the great 
world as yet. But after the next drawing-room, she 
was to have as full flavoured a taste of it as the heart 
of any girl could desire. 

She had signally failed in carrying out her sister’s 
orders to keep young girls and widows at bay, and 
cultivate young married women alone. The young 
married women had not seemed to care for her, 
whereas a few girls had sought her as ardently and 
perseveringly as though she were the last straw at 
which their brothers, drowning in a sea of impecu- 
niosity, could clutch. And one widow had enfolded 
her in such aldose social embrace that, struggle as 
she would, she found . it impossible to free herself 
from it. 

The intimacy between them had sprung up so 
suddenly, and been cemented with such celerity, that 
Jane’s brain grew bewildered when she tried to explain 
and describe it. Her father, who had always been either 
testily critical or contemptuously indifferent about her 
in Bath, where she was completely over-shadowed by 
Florence, had grown kind and considerate to her 
as soon as — by Florence’s marriage — she (Jane) had 
become of importance in the household as the mis- 
tress of it. Then a little later on, Jane’s developing 
beauty, heightened by well and fashionably made 
dresses, gratified his fatherly pride to such an extent 
that he came out of the slough of ill-temper andselfish 
discontent in which he had wallowed for so many 
years, and strove to the utmost of his ability to make 
life a more agreeable thing to his young daughter. 

This was all in the early days of their bereavement, 
before he could give Jane those society joys and 
diversions in which he intended she should be freely 
indulged by-and-by. Their life was a quiet one, but 
very pleasant, Jane thought. For her father was 
never either testily critical or contemptuously indif- 
ferent now. He seemed to have grown ten years 
younger since the burden of the constantly recurring 
urgent need of money had been lifted from his shoul- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


n 

ders. From being a rather stooping and sorrowful- 
looking man of fifty, he had resumed the fine, upright, 
soldierly bearing and physique of a man over whose 
well-carried head only two score years had rolled. 
Jane felt as proud of her rejuvenated papa as he was 
of his exquisitely developing daughter, and the pair 
gave themselves a happy time together — without too 
much of Florence. 

For it was a fact that, as soon as her natural grief at 
parting with the only companion she had ever had 
was over, Jane felt what she had first considered to 
be sinfully well-pleased at Florence’s departure. She 
had always been tongue-tied, awkward, and abashed 
before her masterful sister, and dimly she recognised 
now that Florence had always stood as a sort of dis- 
paragingly middle-man — or woman — between their 
father and Jane herself. At the same time, though 
she was conscious of a sense of general relief and 
greater importance now that she was the sole daugh- 
ter of Lord Roydmore’s heart and home, she felt as 
lovingly and loyally as ever towards her sister, and 
longed for the time to come when Florence should 
come up to town and partake of the goods the gods 
were now giving to the head of the house of Herries 
freely. 

Up to this period, young Mrs. Graves had been de- 
frauded of what she considered a just portion of her 
natural and legitimate rights. She had proffered her- 
self as a guest in her father’s house repeatedly, and 
each time she had been “put oif” very firmly and 
distinctly by Lord Roydmore himself. Once or twice 
she had presented herself unexpectedly, and tried to 
slide into position as the always welcome eldest 
daughter. But somehow or other she had never 
gained a footing in the establishment, though Jane 
had been altogether on her side. Lord Roydmore 
had suffered her suavely for a day or two, but that 
was all. At the end of a day she had been compelled, 
by some unseen and unrecognised force, to retire to 
her Somersetshire fastness, and her wrath at this 
changed state of things was a sight to see. 


24 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


But now suddenly the whole aspect of affairs was 
altered, and Lord Roydmore made Jane’s heart glad 
by telling her that she “might have her sister and 
Geoffrey Graves up to stay with her for three 
weeks. ” 

“I’ll give you a ball while Flo is here, and we will 
have half-a-dozen dinner parties for them. But make 
Flo understand that I will have no nonsense ! If she 
comes here and has her fling, her husband must come 
with her,” Lord Roydmore said impressively to his 
youngest daughter. 

“Of course she wouldn’t come without Geof, and 
there never has been any nonsense about Flo, papa. 
She was always full of common sense and practica- 
bility, and I don’t suppose she has lost these qualities 
since her marriage.” 

Jane threw up her head like a young war-horse, 
and almost stamped defiantly at her father as she 
spoke. 

“I can’t combat your suppositions, my dear, but 
I know this : I hear many things about Florence that 
I don’t quite like, and if she wants to come without 
her husband I won’t have her. By the way, you may 
as well let her understand that she owes this invita- 
tion to that dear good creature Mrs. Collette.” 

Lord Roydmore was slipping out of the room as he 
spoke, perhaps to save Jane the trouble of answering 
him. But she was too earnest and too eager for him. 
She sprung at him and flung her arm round his 
shoulder. 

“ Papa, Mrs. Collette may be a dear good creature, 
but she must not pretend to dictate to you about your 
children. If I told Flo what you said, I was ‘ to give 
her to understand,’ she would probably order Mrs. 
Collette out of the house, and order me never to speak 
to Mrs. Collette again.” 

Lord Roydmore put his daughter’s arm away from 
him, and his daughter’s appeal aside, with the words, 
severely spoken, — 

“You must learn to be less impulsive, and Flor- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


25 


ence must learn to be less imperious, if either of you 
wish to continue to get on as well as hitherto with 
me. Up to this time I have had no fault to find with 
you, Jane. Your head has not been turned by the 
luxuries with which I have surrounded you, and the 
pleasures in which I have allowed you to participate 
freely ; but if all I hear is true, I have cause for seri- 
ous annoyance, more than annoyance — displeasure 
— with Florence.” 

‘ ‘ After all, papa, I was born to the position ; if I 
had been an upstart, my head might have been turned, 
but I am your own daughter, and the position is my 
right. As for Flo, if Geoffrey has no cause for an- 
noyance or displeasure with her, you can have none ; 
and as for Mrs. Collette, if she comes between us, 
papa, I shall hate her, and let her know it. ” 

It was the first time the Honourable Jane Herries 
had thought fit to assert herself, but her father recog- 
nised, as she stood before him, facing him steadily, 
her handsome young head held up as haughtily as if 
she were a queen defending the rights of her crown, 
and her words ringing out fearlessly, that this child 
of his, whom he had always found to be so yielding 
and obedient, had a will of her own, and a temper of 
her own too. 

“Well, well, we will say no more about it,” he 
said hurriedly. “Nothing will ever come between 
me and my children. As for Mrs. Collette, you 
mustn’t make the mistake of thinking she has been 
interfering, she is incapable of doing anything offi- 
cious. She merely suggested that if the rumours about 
Florence were true — I mean that as there are ru- 
mours about her, it would be just as well that I should 
have her here, and show the world that I counte- 
nanced her. It was done in pure kindness, pure 
kindness, you see.” 

Jane laughed. 

“It’s rather funny to hear of a middle-class 
woman like Mrs. Collette teaching you your duty to 
your daughter. Pont look angry, papa ; she is 


26 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


middle-class, or she wouldn’t be so anxious when I’m 
with her to let people know that I am ‘ Lord Royd- 
more’s daughter. ’ ” Then she held up her face to be 
kissed, and added, “ Thank you very much for 
promising me the ball. ” 

“It will be a good opportunity for you to wear 
your pearls. Mrs. Collette says she hopes you will 
keep entirely to white in this your first season. ” Lord 
Roydmore spoke deprecatingly. Mrs. Collette’s name 
had rolled off his tongue before he had calculated the 
consequences of mentioning her again, but Jane was 
merciful indifferent to that lady’s interference on her 
(Jane’s) own account. It was only when Mrs. Col- 
lette put out a guiding or protecting hand towards 
Florence that she risked getting a rap over the 
knuckles from Jane. 

“I’ll wear my pearls, and I’ll dress in white ; I’ll 
do anything in the world to please you, papa ; and 
now I’ll write to Flo, and tell her what a good time 
you are going to give us,” she said heartily, with such 
a display of confidence in her father having no 
stronger interest in life than his children, that his 
heart smote him a little as he presently wended his 
way across the park to call on Mrs. Collette. 

His step grew jauntier as he approached her house. 
He drew himself up still more erectly, and at a florist’s 
in Queen Street he stopped for a minute to select a 
Malmaison carnation for his button-hole, and a huge 
artistically careless arrangement of the same flowers 
for the lady to whom he was about to pay his respects. 
Ten minutes afterwards he was entering her presence, 
and her “presence” merits a full description. 

What her age might have been at this period it was 
impossible to say. She had no children to date her. 
She was so admirably corsetted that her figure, espe- 
cially her back, looked quite young. She had a light, 
springy step, and an elastic way of swaying her tall, 
lithe form about that was suggestive of the irrepres- 
sible activity and energy of youth. Her dark brown 
hair had not one single silver thread in it ; that is to 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


27 


say, there were no silver threads hi it when it was pre- 
pared for the eyes and observation of man. But if 
you looked closely at her by daylight, when she was 
unprotecfted by the tone of colour which the rose-silk 
curtains and draperies of her drawing-room threw 
around her as a shield, you saw that there were lines 
on her temples, and under her pretty grey hazel eyes, 
that only time can paint in. There was also a slight 
tendency to. fulness under her chin, and when her 
mouth was in repose, and she was alone, there was a 
hard compression, a flattening of the lips, that told its 
own tale of a weary struggle with the world of many 
years’ standing. Nevertheless, in spite of the few 
slight indications of age, Mrs. Collette was a remark- 
ably handsome woman, and so Lord Roydmore 
thought her. 


CHAPTER IV. 

TWO OLD LOVERS. 

The Malmaison carnations had been presented, ac- 
cepted with gracious gratitude, and were lying in the 
lap of the lady whose ripe beauty accorded well with 
that of the flowers. She sat in a low chair with her 
back to the window, through whose rose-tinted cur- 
tains streamed a warm, western light. By her side 
sat Lord RoydmOre, the elderly gentleman who had 
never been so much as suspected of the folly of flirt- 
ing, much less of dreaming of marrying again — by 
his daughter Jane. One of Mrs. Collette’s hands was 
tenderly clasped in both of his ; the other played list- 
lessly with the flowers he had given her. The situa- 
tion appeared to be full of sentiment, but there was 
nothing sentimental in the expression of her deter- 
mined and rather dissatisfied face. 

“It seems to me that we may go on in this indefi- 
nite way for the next ten years,” she began impa- 
tiently. “Jane is the only one of your children to 


28 the honourable jane. 

whom you owe the slightest explanation, for she is 
the only one whom it could affect in any way. Mrs. 
Graves is married and settled away, and your son has 
his own income and own chambers. 1 have made 
Jane like me.” (Lord Roydmore winced.) “ I am 
sure, as far as she is concerned, that you might tell 
her you are going to marry me without any fear of 
her making a fuss.” 

‘ ‘ I would rather defer — in fact, I shall defer — the 
explanation until my daughter Florence has paid us 
her visit and gone home again. I don’t want my 
home peace destroyed by any wrangling with her.” 

Mrs. Collette snatched her hand away from him 
impatiently. 

“Upon my word, Roydmore, I do believe that 
you're afraid of your eldest daughter. Nicely you 
must have spoilt her to let her get the upper hand of 
you so completely. Leave me to deal with her ; I 
think I can hold my own with Mrs. Graves, or a 
dozen Mrs. Graves ! ” 

“ I don't mean my marriage to be made the occa- 
sion of a scandalous quarrel with my family,” he 
said, with decision ; ‘ ‘ leave the matter to me entirely, 
and all will be arranged as you wish in due time. ” 

“As ‘/wish’ ; that’s a nice way of putting it.” 

“Well, as we wish, then. My dearest Helen, I 
think I have proved my fidelity and affection ; but 
we are no longer young people, and it would not 
become us to be impetuous.” 

An angry flush rose to her face 'as he uttered the 
truism. Certainly they were “ no longer young,” but 
she looked a good thirty years his junior. 

“I am not sure that it would not become us better 
than this senseless dawdling at your time of life.” 

“You would not be hard upon me, Helen, if you 
knew how I am hurrying on the alterations at Royd- 
more for your reception when we are married. ” 

She made a grimace. 

“You mean to go to Roydmore, then, and take 
me? Well, if you don’t care, I am sure I needn’t.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. ig 

“It is more than twenty-two years since we either 
of us have been near the place. Some of the old ser- 
vants are left, it is true, but no one who will remem- 
ber you.” 

“Yet I should scarcely consider myself a person to 
be forg-otten, Roydmore.” 

“My dearest, you were a lovely girl, little more 
than a lovely child, in fact, in those days. Now you 
are a glorious woman, Helen.” 

“Child as I was, I managed to turn the heads of 
two men down there, didn’t I .? ” she asked laughingly, 
and he bent forward and kissed her lips with a sud- 
den passion that startled her and surprised himself. 

“ I can’t bear to hear you make the most distant 
allusion to the man you married, the villain who 
caused you so much misery.” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“I don’t often think of him, much less speak of 
him,” she said carelessly. 

“How long ago did he die.? Where was it.? 
You’ve never told me any of the details of his death,” 
he asked, with curious inconsistency. 

“You hate to hear anything about him, and as 
I hate mentioning him, we will drop the subject, 
please,” she replied coolly. 

“At least he had the decency to leave you provided 
for when he deserted you. You have never known 
want, Helen .? ” 

She coloured furiously, and flung up her head. 

“ I have not been utterly destitute of friends. You 
forget some of my people were very well off, and I 
have not been a castaway simply because I made an 
unfortunate marriage in my youth.” 

“The very memory of which shall be blotted out 
by the happiness of the marriage you will make in 
your maturity, my darling,” he said, kissing her. 
But Mrs Collette had no fancy for his kisses. What- 
ever weaknesses she might have, they were not of a 
sentimental or amorous order. Accordingly she 
withdrew herself from his embrace, rose from her 


30 the honourable jane. 

chair, and stood away from him, picking the bou- 
quet of carnations to pieces, and re-arranging them 
in glasses on a little occasional table. As she did 
so, she glanced at him now and again, and thought 
how elderly he looked, and how dull it would be if 
younger and more interesting men were henceforth 
not permitted to dangle about in her train. 

“ How badly these florists arrange their flowers, as 
a rule,’' she said, tugging away at the slight links 
which bound the flowers together. ‘‘ Do you know, 
Roydmore, if you hadn’t come along when you did 
and proposed to me, I should have gone into busi- 
ness as a lady florist. All the men would have come 
to me for buttonholes,” she wound up, with a laugh. 
“And you know,” she added, after a pause of a 
moment or two, “the trade blood in me would have 
been of service, and have made me a capital business 
woman.” 

“Such a painful necessity is removed from your 
path for ever.” 

‘ ‘ The necessity of doing something never has been 
painful to me. I could never be an indolent fine 
lady. I have done much harder work in my time 
than a florist has to do. ” 

“What work? What kind of work?” he asked 
anxiously. 

“ Oh, keeping the balance ; keeping people on as 
friends who wanted to be lovers. That’s awfully 
hard work at times, especially” — she stole a sly glance 
at him — “when the people were young and ardent 
and impressionable.” 

“Your reminiscences are scarcely of an order to 
give me pleasure,” he said, rising up and she saw 
that he was offended. This did not disturb her at all. 
She held his written offer of marriage, and therefore 
he might exercise his capacity for taking offence to an 
unlimited extent. She had been wanting him to go 
for the last quarter of an hour, so she chose to take 
the fact of his rising from his chair as the prelude to 
his departure. 


THE HOHOURABLE JAHE, 3 1 

‘ ‘ Good-bye, ” she said, holding herself so that he 
could not possibly kiss her again. ‘ ‘ Mind you 
assert yourself if your eldest daughter tries on any 
of her airs with you. If you don’t I shall have to 
assert ;;^self, and then there will be ructions. Tell 
Jane that I want her to come and meet a charming 
young man to-morrow ; he’s going to call on me 
about afternoon tea-time. Jane might do considerably 
worse than capture Captain Stafford, for he’s well off, 
as handsome as a star, has the V.C., and holds a 
good staff appointment.” 

“Is he a new or an old acquaintance .? ” Lord 
Roydmore asked. 

‘ ‘ He was a subaltern in Simla when I was out 
there with Dick ; by the way, he knows the Graves, 
he’s an old school-chum of your son-in-law’s, and he 
has been staying at The Court ; but he’s not one of 
the crew who leads Mrs. Graves on to ” 

“Don’t say the word, don’t say the word,” Lord 
Roydmore interrupted, holding up his hand implor- 
ingly. “I can’t even bear to hear such a thing 
rumoured of my daughter, though I feel there is no 
truth in the rumour. ” 

“ Nonsense ! You ask her husband ; they say that 
even in this short time she has half ruined him.” 

“ Does his friend Captain Stafford tell you this ? ” 

‘ ‘ No ; he’s as close as wax about everything that 
goes on at The Court. Only the other day, when I 
said I wanted to introduce Lord Roydm ore’s daughter, 
he said he ‘ knew one of them already,’ in a tone 
that made me think he did not much care about 
knowing another. So then I told him what a dear 
girl Jane was, quite different to Mrs. Graves, and he’s 
coming to-morrow.” 

‘ ‘ Be careful what you’re about ; be very sure of the 
stamp of man you introduce to daughter, Helen.” 

‘ ‘ Captain Stafford is a man you can have no fear 
about ; you’ll understand that when you know him. 
He’s thoroughly honourable ; one of the very few 
really honourable men Dick ever introduced to me,” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


32 

she continued, with a scornful laugh. ‘ ‘ But I am 
keeping you* from your club — how selfish of me." 
Then she rang the bell, and smiled so winningly at 
him that she made him feel she was dismissing him 
summarily for the furtherance of his own pleasure. 

Lord Roydmore had scarcely got himself out of 
the square in which Mrs. Collette lived, when a 
hansom dashed up to her door, and out of it got an 
old-fashioned looking, little round-about man, whose 
years probably numbered no more than Lord Royd- 
more’s, but who might have been old enough to be 
that gentleman’s father, one would have said at the 
first cursory glance. 

Following him there stepped out of the hansom an 
elderly lady, cut on precisely the same pattern as 
himself. She also was round-about and old-fashioned 
in appearance, with a face brimming over with human 
kindness, and attired in the most expensive material 
and tasteless fashion. They looked thoroughly out 
of place, the pair of them, as they trotted through 
Helen Collette’s theatrically-arranged hall into her 
meretriciously-furnished drawing-room. Yet they 
trotted as those to whom the ground was quite famil- 
iar, and they both embraced her as if she had been 
their own child. 

“ My brother has been quite miserable at not having 
seen or heard from you for a week, Helen,” the old 
lady commenced, but I tell him he is too exacting. 
We can’t expect to have so much of you as we had 
before your old friend Lord Roydmore and you met 
again.” 

Helen Collette had the grace to blush as she an- 
swered glibly, — 

Really, I see very little of Lord Roydmore and 
Miss Herries. I try all I can to be kind to the poor 
motherless girl, who, although she is the Honourable 
Jane Herries, is a very ignorant little country bump- 
kin. But you know what a busy woman I am — or 
try to be. This appointment (which I owe to you — 
you dear things) — (this parenthetically, accompanied 


The honourable jane. 


33 


by a filial embrace of both her portly little visitors) — 
takes up all my time nearly. Oh ! I can assure you 
the post of corresponding Home Decorator on a 
fashionable weekly like the Empress is no sinecure. 
Why, people are actually writing to me now to ask 
what breed and colour of dog ‘ goes best ’ with their 
respective drawing-rooms and boudoirs.” 

“Heartless creatures! they would change their 
faithful four-footed friends as they would their curtains 
and chair covers,” said old Miss Wyndham, who had 
many living specimens of highly-stuffed pugs’-skin at 
home. “ My dear Helen, it must be a trying life, a 
very trying life for you, and few but ourselves know 
how nobly you fulfil the duties of it ! ” 

The dear, fat old lady brought tears of heartfelt 
admiration and sympathy into her eyes as she said 
this, and Mrs. Collette sustained her claim to being a 
first-rate amateur actress by looking quite modestly 
abashed and virtuously gratified at receiving all this 
undeserved praise. 

“ But what weVe come to say, my dear Helen, is 
that we feel you want a little holiday,” Mr. Wyndham 
struck in ; “a little holiday which we hope you will 
take with us abroad. And in order that you may do 
it comfortably, and leave an efficient substitute at the 
Empress 0^0.0,, I want you to accept — my sister and 
I want you to accept — this.” 

He put a cheque for three hundred, pounds in her 
hand as he spoke, and Helen thanked him with tears 
in her pretty, bewitching eyes. But she had not the 
faintest intention of taking her “little holiday” with 
the Wyndhams for all that. 

By and by, after sipping some tea, which Helen 
gave to them out of one of the loveliest little old 
Queen Anne silver services extant (a gift from Mr. 
Wyndham), the kind-natured, confiding brother and 
sister departed, ejaculating as they 'went words of 
admiration for her “persistent courage,” and entreaties 
that ‘ ‘ she would not over-do herself with work. ” Mrs. 
Collette gave them this promise — and kept it 1 She was 

3 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


34 

not a woman ever to be over-done’' by hard work. 
Whatever the nature of her work might be, she always 
came to the encounter with a clear head, and a 
hearty determination to do it! And this was why 
she was so invariably successful in every effort she had 
made. She had never permitted herself to grow lax, 
or indifferent, or despondent. In view of her own 
splendid personality, she, as a woman of the world, 
could be none of these things. 

With an untouched heart, with an unsullied repu- 
tation, with the prospect of soon becoming Lady 
Roydmore before her, and a cheque for three hundred 
pounds in her hand, she ought to have been a happy 
woman. 

She ought to have been ! but — there was a “ but ” in 
the situation, blithely and brightly as she seemed to 
fill it. Personally, though they had been lovers long 
ago when he was young, she had a feeling so strong 
that it almost amounted to aversion to Lord Roydmore. 
He was dull and fussily ill-tempered about trifles that 
were deadly uninteresting to her. He had lost the 
spring and vivacity of youth, and she was quick to 
discern that he held himself erect with an effort. Any- 
thing like plainness or physical decrepitude was re- 
volting to her. His caresses sometimes made her 
wholly hate him, and feel half ashamed of herself 
Manliness, vigour, vitality and good looks were things 
that she worshipped, and she won a man who pos- 
sessed all these things to love her. But this man 
could not lift her up to the position she had always 
aspired to fill — the position she had angled for and 
lost when she was a young girl, and as beautiful as 
an houri. It had been the dream of her life to become 
Lady Roydmore, and if Lord Roydmore had come to 
her in the guise of a satyr, she would have accepted 
him. As it was, she only nursed a feeling for him 
that made Lord Roydmore’s affectionate words and 
loving actions loathsome to her. At times she con- 
trolled herself, and submitted to them with what 
seemed like stoical indifference ; but at other times 


The honourable /a He, 35 

she sickened under them, and resented them in a way 
that puzzled him, as simultaneously she would try to 
hasten on the marriage with all the force of her elo- 
quence. In short, she was a conundrum to Lord 
Roydmore, and one that he was never likely to guess. 

For several weeks she had succeeded in keeping 
her affianced husband from either meeting or having 
the faintest suspicion of the existence of either the 
young man whom she loved, or the old man on whose 
bounty she was enabled to live so pleasantly. But 
the strain was rather severe sometimes, when the 
door was opened to the man who was not to be 
allowed up into her drawing-room on account of its 
being already in possession of one or other of the trio 
who had gained admission first. Servants are apt to 
get confused when such delicately complicated situa- 
tions are sprung upon them four or five times a week. 
There was really no just cause nor impediment why 
these three men should not have met and been civil 
to one another. But Helen Collette loved the look of 
a mystery. It pleased her to think that they would 
all have been madly jealous one of another, and it 
did not please her to think how surely she would go 
down in the estimation of the younger man when 
he should make the discovery that she had played a 
treacherously double game, and played it not for 
love, but for the sake of being “Lady Roydmore.” 

This day, which had witnessed her acceptance of 
Lord Roydmore's carnations and old Mr. Wyndham’s 
cheque for three hundred pounds, she chose to regard 
as a culminating point, an important crisis in her 
career. She made a large^resolution, a resolution the 
pain and importance of which, perhaps, only a woman 
can understand, for men do not suffer so keenly when 
they write ‘ ‘ Finis ” to even the most warmly love-lit 
romance as does even a selfish woman. The resolu- 
tion Mrs. Collette made on this day was that she 
would wind up her love-making with Captain Stafford, 
and try to turn him into a friend by marrying him 
to Jane Herries. By that means, she could continue 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


36 

to keep in with him, continue to see him, and, per- 
haps, continue to exert her influence over him. 
She gauged her own strength very accurately ; there 
would be no danger for her in the continued inter- 
course, which would help to relieve the stagnant 
monotony of her married life with Lord Roydmore. 

And if there was danger to Jane’s happiness or 
Captain Stafford’s honour in the contemplated arrange- 
ment, why, they must aver it as well as they can. 
“ I must look out for myself,” she said, with the frank, 
intolerant selfishness that was so characteristic of her. 


CHAPTER V. 

CARNATION TIME. 

The friendship between Helen Collette and Captain 
Stafford was an affair of five years’ standing, and it 
had been marked by countless phases of feeling and 
demeanour. He had fallen very rapidly and madly 
in love with her beautiful person, and her charmingly 
frank and vigorous manner, when first he had met 
her, and as she was a thorough woman of the world, 
he had not hesitated to tell her so. But in those days 
he was only an impecunious subaltern, whose elder 
brother was alive, and in such good, robust health 
that Harry Stafford’s prospects of coming into any of 
the family loaves and fishes had been nil, apparently. 
Accordingly, though she had surrendered her heart to 
his persistent and passionate pleading, she had refused 
to marry him, and for a time the repulse had made 
him a more desperate lover than ever. The fire of 
his passion was fanned into a fiercer flame by the free 
use Helen made of every art and allurement of which 
she was mistress. She would not have him for her 
husband because poverty and obscurity, and the loss 
of Mr. Wyndham’s convenient cheques, would be her 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 37 

portion if she married him. She loved him in her way 
—and hers was a very warm and enthralling one when 
she pleased — and the possibility of any other woman 
catching his heart in the rebound drove her frantic. 
Accordingly, she kept him on by cleverly administered 
doses of hope and despair, keeping her own head the 
while, though giving the fullest verbal expression to 
her love for him. 

During his absences from England, she plied him 
with letters that were calculated to raise the tempera- 
ture of any climate in which he received them. . Such 
loving, flattering, sympathetic letters they were, never 
too long, never crossed, and never tedious. He 
thought he read her heart in every word, and cursed 
the lack of means which made her prudent ‘ ‘ for his 
sake,” as she told him. 

But somehow or other, when, by that robust elder 
brothers death, ‘Hack of means ” no longer stood 
between his Helen and himself, a something else in- 
terposed. Absence had made him more ardent than 
ever, when he returned to England rich and distin- 
guished, and sought her without delay. But his 
ardour was damped when she showed more anxiety 
to speak of marriage than of love. Her practicality 
chilled him. She showed the harder and more schem- 
ing side of her character just at the time when she 
should have been most tender and trustful. Even if 
she had no sympathy with him in the sorrow he felt at 
his brothers death, he would have liked her better 
had she feigned a little. Instead of which, she was 
now in as great a hurry to secure him legally, as she 
had formerly been anxious to keep the legal tie at 
bay. 

He was chilled and disappointed, and he showed 
that he was those things. Then the usual thing hap- 
pened. She reproached him with being “cool and 
changed,” until her reproaches first became weari- 
some, and then odious to him. She grew jealous of 
the most shadowless women. She disparaged those 
whom he liked, and called him to account for every 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


38 

idle word he uttered to the girls with whom he danced, 
and the women he took in to dinner. P'inally — most 
fatal step of all — she “ reminded ” him of his forrner 
vows and protestations to herself, and scolded hirn 
for having grown slack in proffering them now, until 
he held aloof from her, in the hope that her jealousy 
would make her break with him altogether. When 
he took this receding step she grew frightened, and 
implored him with such passionate fervour ‘ ‘ to come 
back to her, if only as a friend,’' that he acceded to 
her request, and once more entangled his feet in the 
net spread for him by a woman of whom he had begun 
to get sick. 

Fortunately for Harry Stafford, Lord Roydmore 
came upon the scene at this juncture, and Helen 
Collette adapted herself to circumstances. The old 
love could give her more tangible good things than 
the young one, and in the days to come she would be 
able so to pose before the world as to make the now 
indifferent young lover covet her favour, and long for 
her love again. So she accepted the man who bored 
and sometimes revolted her, and longed for the time 
when she could proclaim her social triumph, and per- 
haps give Harry Stafford’s heart one wrench before 
she had finally done with him. 

But, in the meantime, while she was waiting and 
chafing for Lord Roydmore’s consent to make their 
engagement public, she used every syren spell she 
knew to make Captain Stafford her own trusting 
sweetheart again. She ceased frdm worrying him to 
come to her constantly ; she refrained from reproach- 
ing him when he stayed away. But when he came 
she gave him sweet welcomes and warm words, let- 
ting him understand that though he had taught her to 
feel that marriage was out of the question between 
them, still she was ready to be loyal, loving and true 
to him without any ulterior views. 

It staggered and annoyed him when first he dis- 
covered that she was ready to let his mad promises 
and protestations limply fall away into the limbo of 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


39 

forgotten things. He had no wish to keep these 
promises. He knew that he would find her a terrible 
failure if ever he were mad enough to make her his. 
Still, when she seemed resigned to the relinquishment 
of this prospect, his vanity was hurt, and his curiosity 
stirred to discover the cause. 

On this day, when she had invited Jane to five 
o’clock tea with her, she had taken care to have Cap- 
tain Stafford to luncheon, in order that all the expla- 
nations might be got over and the atmosphere cleared 
before Miss Herries came upon the boards. 

She had prepared the stage and dressed for her part 
in the scene that was to ensue with care. In common 
with the majority of women, she desired that this lost 
lover of hers should carry away an impression of her 
that should haunt him all his life. He should regret 
having lost the right to enter within the sweet pre- 
cincts of that rose-tinted, rose-scented room whenever 
it pleased him. He should regret the right to utter 
and listen to warm, sweet words of love from the 
beautiful lips that never permitted themselves to fall 
into hard lines when observant man was present. 
He should regret no longer being at liberty to take 
the slim, firm, ring-covered fingers in his own, and 
caress and kiss them as much as seemed good to 
him ! 

He should remember all these things vividly, and 
regret them passionately at times as long as the blood 
coursed quickly and warmly through his veins. 

It was not a kind-hearted determination at which 
to have arrived. But when a woman is forced into 
facing openly a future which she detests, she is apt 
to feel an inclination to give a parting twinge to the 
one to whom she owes the position. If Harry Staf- 
ford had met her views and married her when first 
fortune smiled upon him, she would “ not have been 
tempted to give herself to methodical, tedious old 
Roydmore,” she told herself. At the same time, she 
vowed that no amount of supplication from Harry for 
a renewal of their engagement should move her now, 


40 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


Sentiment was dead within her. She had settled her- 
self to be Lady Roydmore. 

She had a magnificent figure, and the upper portion 
of her pearl-grey silk and pink velvet tea-gown fitted 
her like a sheath. It showed every line of the straight 
back that slendered away so gracefully to the waist, 
every curve of the shapely shoulders and broad bust. 
She looked a superb woman in it, her well-held head 
rising freely above multitudinous folds of fine old lace, 
that would have looked as if they were choking a 
shorter-throated woman. She looked a superb woman, 
and she knew it, and wondered how Harry Stafford 
would bear the entire renunciation of her. 

Though he had accepted her invitation to lunch, 
he had done it reluctantly, and he had come unwill- 
ingly. He feared that the hollow truce of friendship 
between them which had now existed for some weeks 
would be broken through by her, and that once again 
she would partly coax and partly coerce him into 
renewing those old, loving relations, which, if renewed 
now, must end in marriage. He remembered so 
many things about her now to which he had been blind 
during the height of his passion. 

“ She was hot-tempered and exacting, vain, and 
several years older than himself. It would be awfully 
hard lines if she ran him in, and made him marry her 
against his will.” 

His thoughts were running in this groove when he 
came into the room, and found her writing, her back 
turned to the door. For a minute he stood there, 
thinking she had not heard him enter. But she unde- 
ceived him by suddenly throwing, down her pen, 
wheeling round in her chair, holding out her hand, 
and saying, with her most winning smile, — 

“It is so good of you to have come, Harry. I am 
disappointed of a man I asked to meet you, and now 
I am scribbling a note in frantic haste to ask the 
Wyndhams to fill the vacuum.” 

“ For heaven’s sake do nothing of the kind. We 
don’t want the Wyndhams, or any one else, ” he added 


the hoho c/e able /a he. 


41 


earnestly ; for already the recollection that she was 
hot-tempered, exacting, vain and several years older 
than himself was fading away from his mind. “We 
don't want any one, Helen ; tear it up ! ” 

She hesitated for a moment, then, yielding to his 
wdshes, she tore it up and consigned it to the waste- 
paper basket, for which receptacle it had been des- 
tined from the first. Then she rose and walked over 
to her own special chair, with its back to the rose- 
coloured light, waving him into another at some 
distance from hers as she did so. 

There was something in the atmosphere that 
puzzled and fired him. The frankly free air of 
friendship which had existed for some time had van- 
ished ; in its place a sweet, sad, cool restraint, that 
might be but the precursor of a storm, or that might 
be significant of the end of all things. Never in his 
life had he seen her look so beautiful. There was a 
suspicion of tears in her eyes. She had been crying 
bitterly, indeed, but it had been over some pressing 
bills. However, this he did not know, and he thought 
the tears were on his account ; but while she kept 
him at bay in this undefinable way, he could neither 
ask her to confide her sorrows to him, nor soothe the 
tears away with kisses. 

They lunched together presently without the re- 
stricting presence of a servant, but still Helen made 
no use of the opportunity to re-storm the citadel of his 
heart. He had been prepared to make a strong 
resistance had she done so, for in his calmer moments 
he realised intensely what an unsuitable wife she 
would be for him. But now, as she did not do it, he 
forgot the unsuitability, and felt aggrieved. 

She looked so handsome all the time, too, and 
never, never in the course of all their long acquaint- 
anceship had she shown herself to be possessed of 
such a bitterly-sweet vein of mingled pathos and 
humour. This revealed itself to him more especially 
after luncheon, when they had gone back to the 
rose-tinted drawing-room, which had been re-deco- 


42 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


rated during their absence with glorious masses of 
huge carnations of every shade, varying from white, 
through all the shades of pink, to crimson. 

“What does this mean, you extravagant woman } ” 
he asked. “ When we went in to luncheon, the room 
was smothered with my favourite yellow roses. ” 

“ It only means that the time of roses is past, and 
the riper glory of the carnation time is coming,” she 
said, throwing off the shade of sadness. “ Be a can- 
did friend, and admit that the carnations suit my 
maturity better than the roses did. Lord Roydmore 
sent me the carnations ; he has exquisite taste. ” 

For an instant Captain Stafford allowed himself to 
feel outraged. Then he remembered what a ghastly 
feeling of chagrin, not to say disgust, would have 
been his portion if she had either bothered or beguiled 
him into marrying her. As it was, she deserved his 
warmest gratitude for the really picturesque and 
pleasant way in which she had prepared him for the 
new order of things. 

“Thank you for telling me so much in such a 
sweet way, and reward me for the stoicism with 
which I have borne the tidings, by giving me a car- 
nation for a button-hole, and pinning it in for me.” 

She pinned it in with dexterous, untrembling fingers. 
He was not going to give her any trouble, she felt. 
At the same time, his eyes told her plainly enough 
that he admired her more than ever. 

“I have told you nothing yet, remember that. Cap- 
tain Stafford. I have made no statement to you. I 
simply say that carnations become my mature years 
better than roses, and* that Lord Roydmore gave me 
the carnations. By the way, I expeCt his daughter 
Jane here presently. I wonder what you’ll think of 
her?” 

“Is she like her sister? If she is, I have an 
appointment ! ” 

“Not a bit like Mrs. Graves ; but I won’t describe 
her. You shall judge her for yourself. Your taste 
is unerring.” 


THE HOATO C/E ABLE /A HE. 


43 

She shot one g-lance at him as she said this, a glance 
that made him wish she wore the roses still. An 
inconsistent wish on his part, certainly, considering 
he had come there primed with the intention of break- 
ing with her altogether, if he could do so with honour 
and without cruelty. 

But now that she had taken the initiative so unmis- 
takably, by substituting the carnations of another 
man for the yellow roses which she had hitherto 
always affected, because they were his favourite 
flowers, he experienced a sharp twinge of mortified 
vanity, which he mistook for a pang of wounded 
love. 

“You are right in saying that my taste is ‘ unerring ; ' 
so it is as far as looks are concerned, for it selected 
you ; but I’m no judge of a woman^s heart, I find. 
You’re throwing me over with about as much feeling 
as if I were an old glove.” 

“And you.? What have you been doing for the 
last few weeks? You haven^t exactly ‘thrown me 
over,’ — it would have been against your code of 
honour to do that, — but you have done worse. You 
have been cooling gradually, and giving me long- 
drawn-out agonies. Now, let us be sensible, and 
cease from reproaching each other.” She paused 
for a moment, and then added, with one of those 
rapid transitions of manner which was one of her 
strongest weapons, “Believe me, Harry, the time I 
have passed with you has been the happiest part of 
my life. Say that it has been a happy time for you 
too, now that it is over.” 

Her voice broke with a real sob as she spoke the 
last words and a look came into her eyes that told 
him there had been real feeling in the way she had 
played her part in this romantic farce. He knew 
that it was time the curtain should be rung down. 
Still, he could not help feeling that the romantic farce 
had been a pretty one to play in. 


44 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


CHAPTER VI. 

A FLOWER LESSON. 

If Mrs. Collette really wished to bring about any- 
thing resembling a tender feeling between Miss Ker- 
ries and Captain Stafford, she did a very unwise thing 
in causing them to meet immediately after she had 
written “Finis’" to the love-story between Stafford 
and herself. 

If, on the other hand, she only wanted to appear to 
be magnanimously desirous of consoling him for her 
defection by giving him the chance of making a 
younger, fresher woman her rival, then she had acted 
with discretion. 

The appearance of the pair upon whom Jane pres- 
ently poured herself with punctuality and impetuos- 
ity gave her a slight shock. Traces of tears were 
still to be seen in Mrs. Collette’s pretty eyes, and the 
handsome, distinguished-looking man who was Mrs. 
Collette’s sole companion looked unmistakably sulky. 
It flashed upon Jane in a moment that she was not 
wanted by either of these people, and in her young 
indignation at having been invited to put herself in 
the false position of the proverbially unwanted third, 
she said, — 

“I have only come in to tell you that I can’t stay. 

I have some shopping to do that must get itself done 
to-da)L ” 

“ Now, Jane, that’s nonsense.” Mrs. Collette had 
the girl fast by the hand as she spoke. “I am des- 
perately low-spirited and unhappy to-day, and you 
are to stay here and brighten me up. Having no 
daughter of my own, I shall make you play dutiful 
daughter to me for a little time.' ’■ 

She lifted Jane’s tightly-gloved cool young hand 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


45 

to her forehead, and Jane s sympathies were aroused 
at once. The brow was hot and throbbing, and the 
sweet eyes that looked up from under it were unmis- 
takably dewy still. In a moment Jane forgot all her 
antagonism of yesterday against this woman. Mrs. 
Collette had been very kind to her, and Mrs. Collette 
was now evidently in pain. 

“You dear! I’ll play dutiful daughter or any 
other part you please,” she said, flinging her arms 
round Helen’s neck. Then as the latter, who was 
really overstrained from having passed through such 
various phases of emotion, sobbed for a moment or 
two with genuine feeling, Jane obeyed a natural 
impulse and called on the only other occupant of the 
room for aid. 

‘ ‘ Bring that eau de cologne, and come and bathe 
her forehead, and — do you think you had better rub 
her other hand } ” 

“No, no, Jane,” Mrs. Collette protested, laughing 
in spite of herself at the turn affairs had taken ; “ my 
bands are quite hot enough already, and I wouldn’t 
have a drop of eau de cologne on my forehead for the 
world ; it spoils the skin dreadfully. Remember that, 
young lady, when you’re inclined to try it as a rem- 
edy for a pain in your temples. Captain Stafford, let 
me introduce you to Miss Herries. Jane, you dear, 
careless, child, you have pulled my hair out of shape. 
While I go and have it put straight, ring for tea, and 
try to make Captain Stafford forget the little exhibition 
of feminine fatigue to which I have treated him.” 

She had swept to the door as she spoke, and in a 
moment more they were alone, and Jane was feeling 
that the world held something which she had never 
dreamt of before I A man, namely, upon whom it 
was a Heaven-born privilege to look. “ He’s differ- 
ent to every one else in the whole world,” she 
thought, though in what the difference consisted she 
would have found it hard to define. 

As for him, he was more struck with the beauty of 
Helen’s generosity in bringing him into easy, social 


46 the honourable JANE, 

relations with this girl than he was with the beauty 
of the girl herself. By this final action Helen had 
glorified herself in his eyes more than ever, and more 
than ever he wished that the yellow roses still held 
sway over her. 

Mrs. Collette’s hair took some time to rearrange. 
The man and girl who were thus incontinently thrown 
together were compelled to get themselves out of the 
glacial period, and to assume a decent air of recog- 
nition of one another’s presence. If Jane had been a 
fashionably frozen young lady, or an effusively fast 
one. Captain Stafford would have wrapped himself 
up in a cloak of reserve, and allowed her to ‘ ‘ gang 
her ain gait.” But she was neither of these things. 
She was simply “a wonderfully pretty, boyishly 
frank little girl,” he thought. So he exerted himself 
to make the period of waiting for Mrs. Collette’s 
reappearance less irksome to her. 

He tried her on the topic of flowers first, and pres- 
ently they found themselves going round the room 
studying the various effective grouping of Malmaison 
carnations with nothing but their own foliage, which 
filled every available space in Helen’s room. Jane 
warmed to the theme. 

‘‘They are papa’s favourite flowers ! He ought to 
be here to-day as Mrs. Collette has done her room 
with them, oughtn’t he? ” she asked, lifting her violet 
eyes to Harry Stafford’s so suddenly, that he felt like 
a traitor for concealing from her that the carnations 
were there, not only with Lord Roydmore’s knoAv- 
ledge and consent, but by his good-will and bounty 
also. - 

‘ ‘ What is your favourite flower ? ” he asked. 

“I have five,” she said, spreading out her little 
hand and checking them off on her fingers as she 
enumerated them rapidly. “Violets of all kinds — 
chiefly Neapolitan, lilies of the valley (aren’t they 
dears .?), yellow roses ” 

“They’re mine, but I'll let you have a share in 
them,” he interrupted. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 47 

“Are really she cried delightedly, at hav- 
ing discovered a fellow-feeling in this unique being. 
“ Gardenia and cowslips.’' 

She had poised herself on the arm of a chair, and 
he had seated himself on a very low stool at her feet, 
while she had been making out her list. Now when 
she paused, the forefinger of her right hand resting 
on the little finger of the left, which represented 
cowslips, he put his hand out quickly and grasped 
hers. 

“ Stop a moment,” he exclaimed in explanation of 
his action, ‘ ‘ don’t break off yet. I’ll bet I’ll give you 
five more that you will admit you like equally well 
with those you’ve named. I am sure you’re not a 
niggard in your love for flowers. ” 

“Go on,” Jane said gravely. Her thoughts had 
travelled back to Bath, and its beautiful old flower- 
market. She forgot that he was holding her hands. 

“Now, listen!” he said, separating the pale grey 
kids, and taking each one into single keeping in his 
own ; ‘ ‘ don’t be impatient, but weigh well the merits 
of each flower as I name it. Don’t be in a hurry 
to agree with me, but just listen while I put their 

respective claim before you. Honeysuckle ” 

“ Oh ! honeysuckle’s sweet ; I forgot it.” 

“ You did, but you mustn’t forget it again, nor will 
you when I have pleaded its cause. You say it’s 
sweet. What makes its sweetness } ” 

“Why — its sweetness, to be sure,” Jane cried un- 
easily. “ Now, please, go and be scientific. It 
is sweet, and I know it’s sweet, and I don’t want to 
know why it’s sweet.” 

' “ But you shall know,” he whispered, laughing ; “ it 
is sweet out of pure good-heartedness. It is the 
flower that refines and perfumes the atmosphere 
amidst which most of the rustic love-making goes on. 
Lubin learns to say prettier things to his Chloe under 
the influence of the honeysuckle’s breath than he 
would say if only the odours of turnips were being 
wafted around him.” 


48 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE JANE, 


Tell me another flower that I must put on my 
list.” Jane took one hand gently away from him as 
she spoke, not because the suggestion of there being 
the slightest impropriety in his retaining it occurred to 
her mind, but simply because a thread from her veil 
was tickling her nose, and she needed a hand to take 
the veil off. 

“You’re shamefully ignorant if you haven’t learnt 
to love white heather ? ” 

“ It’s pretty, but has no scent” 

“Indeed it has, the most delicate imaginable — so 
delicate as to be almost imperceptible to any but the 
most cultivated nostril. Fairies, kelpies, and you 
and I enjoy it, of course.” 

“ My brother Jack shall bring me a large consign- 
ment of white heather when he comes back from 
Scotland, and I’ll send you a pot full of it. Captain 
Stafford. ” 

“ That will be a very laudable action on your part. 
Myrtle ; of course you had momentarily forgotten 
myrtle when you made out your list t It’s the real 
bridal flower ; orange blossom is rather coarse for the 
bridal wreath, don’t you think .? ” 

“ Not coarse ; no, no, no ! ” 

“ Just think for a moment. The blossom in due 
time develops into the fruit which brings third-class 
railway carriages and Hampstead Heath vividly to 
one’s memory ; but you know nothing of third-class 
railway carriages and Hampstead Heath.” 

“Don’t I, though.? We never went in anything 
else before grandpapa died ; and as for Hampstead 
Heath, I rode my first donkey there, and thought I 
was quite in the wild whirl of fashionable life when 
I did it. Now for your last two before I ring for 
tea.” 

“I avoid all the swells in Flora’s kingdom, you 
observe .? I’ll complete my list with the names of two 
very old friends — the ‘ white ’ bluebell and the little 
wild geranium. , You are to be especially devoted to 
the white bluebells in future. My mother used to say 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


49 

they were the bells on which the music of the angel 
Israfel is rung/' 

‘ ‘ The white bluebell is the dearest of all the list, ” 
Jane was saying with solemn eagerness, when Mrs. 
Collette came in with renovated hair and restored 
courage, notwithstanding, this latter fact, though the 
sight of these two people hand-in-hand tried her 
rather severely. 

“Why, Jane," she began sharply, “ are you an in- 
valid, and is Captain Stafford your physician .? " 

“Oh, he's not feeling my pulse," Jane said uncon- 
cernedly. “We got talking about flowers, and were 
ticking off our favourites on my fingers." 

A rich carnation flush crept up into Helen's cheeks 
for a moment, but she subdued the angry emotion 
which produced it with a courage that was admirable, 
considering how every gesture, word and look of the 
man concerned had power to thrill her still. She had 
gone out of the room, leaving them alone for the ex- 
press purpose of allowing these people to become ac- 
quainted with each other naturally, unfettered by her 
presence. Yet, now that they seemed to be so excel- 
ently well acquainted, she felt in a rage, and wished 
that she had been less magnanimous and more care- 
less as to the appearance of her hair. 

Meantime, Captain Stafford was far less struck or 
smitten with Jane Herries than Mrs. Collette believed 
and feared him to be. He thought her a “ pretty girl, 
smart and good form," but he was not at all sure that 
she was not prettily pretending to be very much more 
unconventional, and fearlessly regardless of Mrs. 
Grundy, than she was in reality. 

‘ ‘ A girl who lets a fellow hold her hand for ten 
minutes the first time she meets him, knows how 
many broad beans make five,” he told himself, and it 
occurred to him that she would not have done this if 
he had not been a V. C. man, and the owner of a 
grand old place with a fine rent-roll. As a ^ matter of 
fact, Jane had never heard of him before this day, or 
of his decoration, grand old place and fine rent-roll at 


50 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


all. He merely did her the injustice which an eligible 
man is apt to do a girl who seems to like him — of 
thinking her mercenary, and of being ready to leap 
into matrimony with any man who could please her 
well at first sight. 

Now the Honourable Jane was very much a child of 
nature still. In the old impecunious, uncultivated days 
at Bath, she had been left, as has been told, very 
much to her own devices, and she had caught up the 
dangerous trick of responding with fatal celerity to 
any one or anything that showed her kindness. Her 
love of being loved, or at least liked, had grown, and 
strengthened on the nipping system which Florence 
had applied to it. If a cur wagged its tail to her 
affably in the street, she forthwith wanted to take that 
cur home, and nourish and cherish it. If a man paid 
her a little courteous attention, she instantly longed 
to do him some kindness in return, especially if the 
man was nice. The idea of matrimony had scarcely 
entered her head yet. In course of time she supposed 
she would marry, but no individual man had suggested 
the supposition to her. So now she really felt grate- 
ful to Captain Stafford for the kind way in which he 
had enlarged the borders of her special floral loves, 
and showed her gratitude by listening with delighted 
attention to every word he spoke. 

These words were not many. Helen’s presence 
threw a shade over what had been, a few minutes be- 
fore, the sunniest manner Jane had ever seen dis- 
played by man. The habit of loving Helen had been 
upon him for so many years that it seemed like 
beginning life anew to find that henceforth the habit 
must be relinquished. Though she had not told him 
in so many words, he realised that she was going to 
marry Lord Roydmore. Her remarks about his car- 
nations being better adapted to her mature years than 
the yellow roses which belonged to bygone days and 
Harry Stafford, had unmistakably pointed to that con- 
clusion, and though, when he entered the house, he 
had been as averse to marrying her as a man well 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


51 


could be, he now felt annoyed that to this other con- 
clusion affairs had come. His mood was contradic- 
tory, but essentially human, and his heart was not 
caught in the rebound by Jane s beauty, youth and 
grateful desire to please him. When he left them, as 
he did very soon, it was on Helen that his eyes lin- 
gered last, and it was Helen's hand — the cruel hand 
that had just crushed the last bit of romance out 
of their affair — which won the warmest pressure from 
his. Already he had forgotten the episode of the flower 
lesson. Already he had forgotten the thrilling touch 
of Jane’s confiding little fingers. In the presence of 
the married woman, who diffused such an atmosphere 
of autumnal splendour, the spring-like beauty and 
freshness of the young girl was shone down effectually. 

There was a brief silence between the two women 
after the door had closed after him, then Helen 
asked, — 

“ What do you think of Captain Stafford, Jane.?” 

“He has made every other man seem insignificant. ” 

“ You susceptible goose,” Mrs. Collette said, laugh- 
ing, but not unkindly. “Well, my dear, I may as 
well tell you he has a way of making other men 
seem insignificant in most women’s eyes. I am glad 
you like him. I want you ” 

She pulled herself up abruptly. Even she could 
not bring herself . to say that she wanted another 
woman to do more than like Harry Stafford. 

She was as little addicted to the folly of indulging 
in useless retrospection as any woman that ever 
lived. But she could not obliterate in a moment the 
memory of all the fond fooling which had gone on 
between them for years. She knew that, if she had 
beguiled him into marrying her, her seniority would 
have told against her in his heart and taste in a very 
short time. Nevertheless, the thought that he had 
wanted to marry her once was passing pleasant to 
her. 

Jane had been wandering about the room while 
these thoughts flew through Helen’s mind, and now 


52 the honourable jane. 

the girl spoke, and turned Mrs. Collette’s mind from 
the past to the future. 

“Your carnations are lovely. Apparently you’re 
as fond of them as papa, only the habit of old days is 
upon him so strongly that he won’t indulge in the 
extravagance of buying more than one at a time for 
his button-hole.” 

It was an excellent opportunity for breaking the ice. 
Should she take it } For a few seconds Helen hesi- 
tated, then she said, — 

“ As he is such a niggard about them as regards him- 
self, you’ll be surprised to hear that it was Lord Royd- 
more who sent me all these. ” 

Jane came across the room with a bound and stood 
by her friend’s chair, her head thrown up, and a look 
of anger on her face. 

“If he did, he must be infatuated, gone silly about 
you. How can you encourage him to do it — an old 
man like papa } ” 

“Perhaps I may not consider him silly for being 
‘infatuated,’ as you call it, with me. Indeed, I am 
very much flattered. ” 

“But it’s horrid of you to lead him on to makehim- 
• self ridiculous, for, of course, you' wouldn’t think of 
him, an old man like papa, with a son of twenty-six.” 

“ I think of him so much that I have promised to 
marry him,” Helen said calmly. 


CHAPTER VH. 

TROUBLE AT THE COURT. 

There was trouble at the Court. The adoring young 
husband and the adored young wife had been having 
the most serious difference which had yet disturbed 
their married lives. 

For some months past Mrs. Graves had been living 
a life of the wildest excitement, in spite of that life 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


53 


being spent in the pure and peaceful country in which 
she had been wont to declare she felt buried alive. 
She was alternately a prey to the most exuberant 
liappiness and the most dismal depression. Remorse 
had not become her portion yet, but recklessness had 
done so, for she had joined the army of female 
gamblers which is devastating the land, and was 
looked upon as one of its most promising recruits. 

The beginning of this miserable end had been at 
the house of a country neighbour, who had a few 
years ago made an enormous fortune out of one of 
the wealthiest mines in Cornwall. Finding that his 
family had no chance of rising in the social scale 
down near the cradle of their race, he brought them 
up to Somersetshire bought a magnificent property 
with a grand old hall upon it, and started as a gentle- 
man, “who ’ad no call to turn his ’and to anything 
any longer.” 

His wife was past that period of life when a vulgar 
woman can by some occult means be transmuted 
into a smart one. But she was an easy, affable, 
kind-mannered woman, who allowed a clever 
maid to dictate what she should wear, and per- 
mitted her daughters to order her when to speak and 
when to be silent. She was also always ready to 
open her purse and let its contents flow out freely 
whenever she was appealed to for any cause deserv- 
ing, or the reverse. It gave her no pain when she 
found that, in spite of the ancestral, hall and the regi- 
ment of servants, the gorgeous furniture and hand- 
some carriages and horses, the county held aloof 
from her and hers. But her son and two daughters 
were anything but resigned to this state of things. 
The son had been got into a cavalry regiment. The 
daughters had been well-educated on the surface, and 
though neither clever nor accomplished, could hold 
their own conversationally in a slangy, smart way 
that gained them the gratifying reputation of being 
“jolly girls, real ripping ones, with no nonsense 
about them.” They were very gallant, too, ^nd un- 


54 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


questionably deserved the order for distinguished 
service in the social field. They were always sallying 
forth and bidding the select who looked askew at 
them enter into their father’s hospitable halls and be 
dined, and luncheoned, and feted in every conceiv- 
able way. And they were always meeting with re- 
buffs when they did so. 

Their name was not a bad-sounding one, though it 
was borne by hundreds of the fisher and mining folk in 
arouncTthe barren little Cornish village where they 
had been born. Penarth has quite a pretty and al- 
most a distinguished tone about it when it is sacred 
to one family only in a neighbourhood. They 
humbly thanked Providence that they had not to bear 
the burden of a hideous surname in addition to the 
absence of h’s from the vocabulary of their papa and 
mamma. And they bore the buffetings they received 
from the Somerset county people philosophically, 
feeling sure that the day would come when the Pen- 
arths would be able to buffet other aspirants in their 
turn. 

They had great, and as it turned out justifiable, re- 
liance on their brother Arthur. He was regarded 
rather as a bit of a cad in the corps to which he be- 
longed ; at the same time he had the recognised 
power of the purse in it. One autumn he was able 
to bring down three or four men of family, means, 
position and current smartness to stay at the Hall for 
ten days. It happened to be young Mrs. Graves’ 
first autumn in ^Somersetshire, and she became ab- 
sorbed into the Penarth circle with a celerity that 
flattered them immensely, for Mrs. Graves, senior 
(Geoffrey’s mother), and his exemplary sisters had 
held themselves not only aloof from, but aloft over, 
the Penarths, and it pleased them well, therefore, to 
draw the younger, brighter representative of the 
Graves’ into their net. 

^ The people whom she^ought to have cottoned to and 
liked were dull. Day after day, existence dragged on its 
dreary, changeless round at The Court. Everything 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


55 


about her was substantially comfortable and well 
assured, and there was much that was beautiful in 
the time-sanctified home to which her husband had 
brought her. But Florence Graves soon got to look 
upon old oak carving, antique silver, priceless china 
and rare jewellery that was not entailed as so much 
convertible property merely. “What’s the use of 
anything, save so much money as ’twill bring,” be- 
came her motto. 

To bring men of the right stamp down to the Hall 
had been the work of young Mr. Penarth. To retain 
them there, to get them to recur and bring others 
along with them, was the pleasing task assigned to 
the Misses Penarth. They soon learnt from their 
brother that, in order to do this, they must inaugurate 
some other form of entertainment wherewith to while 
away the hours of the night than amateur music, 
billiards and conversation, especially as neither the 
native music nor the conversation were of a brilliant 
order. So play became the order of the night, and 
the game they played was baccarat. 

The recklessness and utter absence of science in 
the game commended itself speedily and strongly to 
Florence Graves. One of the most skilled performers 
at the specially-prepared magic table then instructed 
her in its mysteries, and before Geoffrey realised 
that “ Flo’s new fad” was more than a mere pastime, 
she had become inoculated with such a love for it, 
as made life without it seem a dismal waste. 

When she won, she was so dazzlingly happy that 
her husband had not the heart to check her ; and 
when she lost, she bore the blow so bravely, and de- 
frayed her debts of honour so secretly, that he knew 
nothing about it. But still the unceasing, unresting 
way in which she followed up her intimacy with the 
Penarths annoyed and perplexed him. She allowed 
them to absorb her completely into their circle, and 
almost put her on her honour to stand by them when 
the traditional, time-established people in the neigh- 
bourhood glanced askance, or openly condemned 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


56 

them for turning their house into a private hell. She 
“stood up for them ”so vehemently, that she became 
entangled in the net-work of her dwn utterances, and 
as they gave her unstinted praise for her “pluck 
and staunchness,” she felt herself to be plenteously 
rewarded for having to endure the disapprobation 
of her husband and all her steadier-going, warmer- 
hearted but cooler-headed friends. 

During Captain Stafford’s visit to The Court, he 
had been carried several times in his hostess’ train to 
Penarth Hall. That he had gone there very much 
against his will availed him not a bit. He was quoted 
as “one of the Penarth set,” and made to feel him- 
self a renegade if he did not admit the soft impeach- 
ment. Not having the instincts of a gambler, but 
having the instincts of a man, he allowed himself to 
drift into a surface flirtation with the prettiest Miss 
Penarth. He meant nothing, Helen being still the 
peg on which he hung the warmest feeling he had 
ever had for a woman. But Miss Penarth meant a 
great deal, and was good enough to make her mean- 
ing clearly manifest ; so manifest, indeed, that Cap- 
tain Stafford brought his visit to the Graves’ to an 
abrupt conclusion, and left, swearing to himself that 
nothing should ever tempt him to put his foot inside 
Penarth Hall again. 

This had happened some time before he had the 
interview with Helen Collette which has been de- 
scribed, and in the interim he had done his best to stir 
his friend, Geoffrey Graves, up to a sense of the danger 
his wife was incurring by her intimacy with the Pen- 
arths, who fostered and encouraged her gambling pro- 
pensities. At first, Geoffrey had turned a deaf ear to 
his friend’s warnings, but, after a time, Florence’s calls 
upon his cheque-book passed the bonds even of his 
tolerance, and he first implored and enreated, and 
finally commanded her to. give up both play and the 
Penarths. 

That she did neither was only what might have 
been expected from Florence, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


57 


Her very disobedience pleased Geoffrey. Above 
all things he admired pluck and stamina, and though 
Florence was exhibiting these qualities in a light that 
was unpleasant to him, he liked her the better for 
doing it. 

“You may lead her with a bit of silk, but by Jove, 
she’s too mettlesome to be driven,” he told his mother, 
when that lady affectionately reviled him for not in- 
sisting upon Florence relinquishing the Penarths and 
their perilous amusements. 

“You will rue the day you married her, and 
you know I have always told you so, Geoffrey,” 
she answered injudiciously. Whereupon Geoffrey 
smothered an oath, and declared that nothing would 
ever make him regret, much less rue, his marriage. 

‘ ‘ I’d do it again to-morrow. Flo and I are as 
happy as any two people can be.” 

“But, my dear boy, she is impoverishing you. I 
am told ” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t listen to the tellings of a 
set of cursed gossips. It’s hard that my wife can’t 
have a little amusement without my own mother find- 
ing fault with me about it. The beastly scandal- 
mongers make as much of her losing a few pounds 
as if she were squandering thousands.” 

“ People say it has come to that, Geoffrey.” 

'“Then people lie,” he said hotly ; and for a little 
time his mother believed him, and was happy. 

But though he defended her doings, and stuck up 
for her stoutly when others ventured to asperse her, 
he fought against her infatuation vigorously in private. 
He tried every means of which he was master to 
break her of a habit which he foresaw, more clearly 
than any one could point out to him, meant ruin. 
Affectionate remonstrances, autocratic commands, 
common-sense pleadings, all these he tried in turn, 
and all failed. The deadly fascination was upon her, 
and when she could not play she bet upon every 
trivial event that happened in the neighbourhood, and 
being impulsive and inexperienced, she nearly always 

lost 


58 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


Dissatisfaction with her fortunes naturally made 
her disatisfied with her own family and with Geof- 
frey’s. She wrote reproachful letters to her father, 
and angry ones to Jane, because she had not been 
given a freer fling in the town house of the Herries’. 
She had flouted the Graves’ by openly preferring the 
Penarths, and the more agreeable foreign element in 
the Penarths’ set, to these safer, steadier, and, it must 
be conceded, duller relations and friends who would, 
now that it was too late, have been all that was 
affectionate, gracious and subservient to her if only 
she would have entered into alliance with them. 
Florence would have none of them, and at times Geof- 
frey almost ranged himself on her side. These were 
the times when she would remind him that his mother 
and sisters had never liked her from the first, and had 
always opposed their marriage. “ They tried to 
separate us, dear Geof, ” she would say plaintively ; 

how can I ever forget that and profess friendship 
for them, though, of course, I forgive them ? ” This 
line of argument would flatter Geoffrey into siding 
with his wife now and again, but these occasions 
recurred less and less frequently as time went on. 

As time went on, too, poor Geoffrey had another 
grievance. “One of the smartest men of Arthur’s 
set,” as the Misses Penarth designated him, was also 
one of the most frequent visitors at Penarth Hall. 
He had a strong reputation for every kind of gal- 
lantry, and while women were wont to admire him 
immensely for the nobler, courageous kind, they 
were secretly fascinated, far too much to be good for 
them, by attentions that were the offspring of the 
other order. He was brilliant and versatile, equally 
good at the arts of war and peace, wrote war corre- 
spondence like a journalist, had shown himself a fine 
soldier in action, was as daring and defiant in his 
open pursuit of every pretty and charming woman 
he met, as if she and she alone existed for him ; and 
indulged in a lavish generosity towards those who 
pleased him that made the better sort dread to express 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


59 

admiration for any procurable object in his presence. 

That this man’s strong personality and magnificent 
physique soon exercised ‘ ‘ a dangerous charm over 
Mrs. Graves,” became current cackle in the neigh- 
bourhood. The charm was less ‘ ‘ dangerous ” in the 
way they suspected than the “convenience ’ of him 
was in another. In a few words, Captain Salusbury 
was a wealthy man, and Florence Graves had ac- 
cepted the degradation of allowing another man than 
her husband to be her banker. 

Up to the present, he had neither exacted nor won 
anything /rom her save gratitude, which, whether 
she felt it or not, she expressed very prettily. But 
Geoffrey began to “grizzle,” as she called it, over the 
incessant intercourse which existed whenever he was 
in the neighbourhood, between Florence and Salus- 
bury. The “ grizzling,” however, had no manner of 
effect upon a woman who lived so entirely for her 
own pleasure that the only sensation the sight of the 
misery of others caused her was an intense desire to 
get out of their way. When at last the invitation 
from her father came for Florence and her husband to 
spend three weeks or a month with him and Jane in 
town, Mrs. Graves would gladly have given her head 
— or rather Geoffrey’s head — to be able to refuse it. 
Captain Salusbury had got leave at her pathetically- 
worded solicitation, and was spending it at Penarth 
Hall, and as Captain Salusbury had been away for 
about a month, she had a postive hunger for his so- 
ciety. This hunger grew savage when it was first 
mooted to her that she was to be separated from him. 
In vain she pleaded lassitude, that would inevitably de- 
velop into downright ill-health if she were subjected 
to the racket of London life. Geoffrey reminded her 
that she had been pining with most objectionable 
persistency for this racket ever since her marriage, 
and firmly impressed upon her that he, and not 
Salusbury, had the ordering of her goings, and that 
accordingly she was to" go. 

Then, for the first time, Florence’s passively con- 


6o 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


temptuous indifference to her husband took the form 
of active dislike. He stood resolute and immovable 
in the way between herself and her pleasure. That 
he, who had hitherto been as malleable gold in her 
hands, should so block her path made her furious, 
and in her fury she made the fatal mistake of imply- 
ing that another man already gave her more sym- 
pathy than he (Geoffrey) did, and would have been 
thrice as kind and indulgent were he in Geoffrey's 
place. 

Her frivolity, her disregard of his wishes, her barely 
concealed indifference to him, her extravagance — all 
these things he had half ignored and wholly forgiven. 
But when she hinted heartlessly and insolently that 
another man loved her more, and would be kinder 
to her if she would let him, than the husband who 
was thwarting her a little, Geoffrey's heart nearly 
broke. He still believed her to be so pure and good 
that he had no fear of her falling into actual sin, but 
that she should suffer her thoughts to dwell on the 
possibility of another man loving her better, and 
being more tender to her than he was himself, seemed 
to him to sully what he supposed to be the snowy 
purity of her mind. 

He would not degrade her by any display of jeal- 
ousy after this. He would show her how absolutely 
her hints and implications had failed to make him 
distrust her. She might see as much of Captain 
Salusbury as she pleased ; but he was determined that 
she should accept her father's invitation and go to 
town. 


CHAPTER VIIL 

A FAVOURITE CHILD. 

Miss Herries had gone home, after Mrs. Collette’s 
disclosure, in a state of mingled misery and wrath. 
It seemed monstrous and incredible that a woman 


THE liONOVRABLE JANE, 6i 

who still looked so young as Helen did, and who 
was undeniably beautiful, should have promised to 
marry a man who lapsed into old age directly he 
discarded the garments in which he faced the world, 
and subsided into his dressing-gown and slippers. 
More than this, Jane, though inexperienced, was not 
a fool. She had observed a subtle something in 
Captain Stafford's manner to his beautiful old familiar 
friend, as well as in that lady's manner to him, which 
showed her that, whatever they might be now, those 
two had been infinitely dear to each other. It almost 
savoured of indelicacy, Jane thought, that, in the 
face of this evidence which they had brought against 
themselves, Mrs. Collette should have proclaimed 
her intention of marrying Jane's made-up and emi- 
nently unattractive old father. 

In addition to this, Jane had already begun to taste 
the sweets of power. She was the mistress of an 
admirably appointed home, and there was no one to 
question whither she went or why she came. There 
are some natures — and these are generally the sweetest 
and most wholesome ones — to whom liberty once 
tasted becomes absolutely indispensable. The slight- 
est attempt to put fetters of any description upon them 
makes them strike out against the powers that be. 
The thought of subsiding into the position of a mere 
appendage to Helen Collette, when the latter should 
have become the mistress of the admirably appointed 
home, grew intolerable to the girl as she drove home. 
Fortunately for the preservation of the present peace, 
an^i for the continuance of friendly relations in the 
future. Lord Roydmore did not see his excited daugh- 
ter until they met at dinner, and then the servants 
were a providential restraint. 

Unluckily for Lord Roydmore, they were neither 
going out, nor had they any guests this evening. 
Smelling powder in the air, he announced his inten- 
tion, in rather a self-pitying and resigned way, of 
“ reading for an hour or two quietly in his study, and 
going to bed early. " But he had hardly settled him- 


63 the honourable jane. 

self down in his easiest chair, with his reading-table, 
lamp and glass of good old port by his side, before 
Jane knocked at the door and came in quickly. 

“ Papa ! ” she began, and then something rose in 
her throat and checked further utterance for a few 
moments. He looked twenty years older than when 
he had faced her an hour before at the dinner-table. 
He had slipped into an old, loose morning-coat, and 
his feet were stuck into big, gouty-looking slippers. 
The carefully disposed locks of streaky grey hair 
were disarranged by their contact with the cushion 
against which his tired head reposed. The lines on 
his forehead were more strongly marked, the tint of 
his skin was sicklier than she had ever noticed it 
before. A strong wave of love and pity for him 
swept over her heart, and obliterated all the anger 
and contempt she had been nursing against him since 
hearing Mrs. Collette’s disclosure. I nstead of reproach- 
ing and ridiculing him for his infatuation, as she had 
intended doing, his daughter fell on her knees by his 
side, and flung her arms round his neck. 

“Papa, poor papa, are you feeling ill.? Let me 
stay with you. Let me bring my work in and sit 
with you.” 

He drew a long breath which lined a weight off his 
heart. He had felt something like a spasm there on 
his daughter’s sudden entrance, for he had rightly 
fathomed the cause of her visit. But her abrupt 
relapse into tenderness reassured him. He felt better, 
and looked it. 

“I am subject to little nervous attacks,” he ex- 
plained fretfully. “Any sudden jar to my nerves, 
such as flinging open doors and bouncing into my 
room, disturbs and startles me. > You must be careful 
to avoid doing this in future, my dear child. I am 
better now. No, no, you needn’t bring your work. 
I don’t care to watch a woman stitching. ” 

“I didn’t mean to bounce in, papa ; and if you 
don’t like the work, may I come here and read ? I 
don’t like to think you are here alone when you are 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


63 

not feeling well/' Jane pleaded. She felt rebuffed and 
humbled, and painfully anxious to make amends for 
that temporary derangement in her father s nervous 
system of which she was the cause. Her wish to 
please him was so evident, so genuine that he allowed 
his features to relax into a rewarding smile. 

“You’re a dear, kind-hearted girl, Jane, dear; 
worth a hundred of that heartless, selfish sister of 
yours. I wish I had discovered it before, but she 
blinded and deceived her father, as she has blinded 
and deceived her husband. But I won't keep you 
here to-night, dear. The society of quite young people 
is rather exhausting, sometimes, to those who are 
past their first youth themselves. Good-night, my 
child.” ^ 

He kissed her quickly, flung his head back upon the 
cushion of his chair with an air of relief, and resumed 
the reading of his newspaper in a way that made Jane 
understand there was to be no appeal against his dis- 
missal of her. She rose slowly from her knees with- 
out any of that energy and vigour which had charac- 
terised her entrance, and which he had unkindly 
described as “bounce,” and took her departure, feel- 
ing chilled and inconsequent, and with the words she 
had come to say unspoken still. 

A few days after this little incident, the Graves 
came up, and Jane forgot a good deal of her anxiety 
about her father’s fate and health in the sharp dis- 
appointment she felt about the relations between 
Geoffrey and Florence, and their respective attitudes 
towards herself. 

Young Mrs. Graves was as pretty and youthful- 
looking as ever, but she seemed to have acquired the 
cynicism and bitterness of the most cynical and bit- 
ter old age, She put aside every expression of affec- 
tion which Jane offered her as so much idle, worthless 
verbiage, and owned candidly that if all she was to 
get from her father was house-room and participation 
in their round of gaiety, she should feel no gratitude 


64 


THE honourable JANE. 


to him for having caused her to be ‘‘ dragged away 
from The Court/’ 

“ I am so glad you’re so fond of your own home, 
but I should like to see that you were glad to be with 
me again for a little time, Pdo ; and papa — you were 
always his favourite child, you know — he must feel 
hurt at your not even seeming to be glad to see him, ” 
Jane said, as the two sisters were having tea in 
Jane’s sanctum on the afternoon of Florence s arrival. 

“ I’m not a bit fond of my own home,’’ Florence 
said calmly, nibbling at her cake. “And as for be- 
ing papa s favourite child, much good his favouritism 
has done me. If it hadn’t been for papa I should 
have broken off my engagement when grandpapa 
died, and then I should have made a decent match. 
As it is, Fm fast bound to a man who bores me to 
death, and who won’t give me the chance of getting - 
rid of him. ” 

‘ ‘ Florence ! how can you speak so brutally of such 
a dear good fellow as Geof .? ” Jane asked indignantly. 
Then she added, “But you don’t mean it ; I know 
you don’t mean it } ” 

“Oh, wise young judge ; oh, good young woman, 

I mean it and a great deal more. Geof’s dearness 
and goodness consists in watching my every move- 
ment with the affectionate vigilance a cat displays 
towards a mouse ; and his goodness consists in 
plodding along as monotonously as his brother 
pudding-headed yokels. Why should I be. grateful 
for these things } ” 

“Geof is altered, Florence; he doesn’t look 
happy.” 

Florence crimsoned angrily. 

“There you go, croak, croak, croak, just like his 
mother and sisters. I can’t help his looking heavy 
and stupid. Perhaps he eats and sleeps too much, 

. and suffers from torpid liver. If he would work his 
brain more, and talk a little more, and stir himself up 
to catch on to things that interest other people, he 
would look more like a man of the day, and less like 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 65 

a stalled ox. Whatever made me weak enough to 
let myself be driven into tying myself up to a man 
who hasn't an idea beyond the bounds of his own 
property, and the birds, beasts and fishes that reside 
upon it, I can't tell. Oh, by the way, I want a card 
for your ball for a friend of mine. ” 

Is it for Captain Stafford .? ” Jane asked, her eye- 
lids drooping before her sisters steady stare; “because 
if it is, we have sent him one. I know him slightly, 
and he told me he had been staying with Geoffrey 
and you.” 

“It’s not for Captain Stafford; and may I ask 
what that gentleman said about me ? Not that I 
care for his opinion very much, only while we were 
in Paris he gave me the impression that he was ready 
to lay down his life for me, and when he came to The 
Court he seemed to have altered his mind. He's not 
quite the type of man I like, but he would do very 
well for you, Jane, if you can persuade his eminence 
to step off his pedestal and look at the sister of such 
an unworthy being as myself.” 

“ I don’t like your jokes ; I see nothing to laugh 
at. I think it's coarse of you to suggest that I am 
trying to get a man to marry me (for that’s what you 
mean) simply because I said I knew him slightly.” 

Florence shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 

“ If you put up your back and buck every time I 
offer you advice, you’ll throw me off, and I shall 
never offer you any more. Now, as you’re so touchy, 
we will cease to speak about your interesting self, and 
you shall tell me a little about papa. Is there any 
truth in this rumour that he wants to marry Mrs. Col- 
lette, the handsome widow .? ” 

Jane nodded her head in assent. 

“ I suppose it is true,” she said. “Mrs. Collette 
told me so herself.” 

‘ ‘ I see breakers ahead, ” Florence cried delightedly ; 
“ why, she’s Harry Stafford’s woman ! ” 

“Florence!” Jane interrupted imperiously, “if 
papa knew that you spoke to me like that ; if he knew 
5 


66 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


you could speak in that way at all, he wouldn’t let 
you stay here.” 

“Then he shall know it without much further de- 
lay,” Florence laughed pleasantly. “You little goose ! 
what a goose you are stili, Jane. This time I meant 
no harm, though. I only meant that any time dur- 
ing the last five years Helen Collette could have 
married Captain Stafford, with whom she is very 
much in love, if she had liked.” 

“Then as she has not married him, he has not been 
in love with her, I suppose,” Jane said, with a trans- 
parent effort at indifference. 

“Oh, yes, he has been and is in what men of his 
calibre call love. She interests, amuses and excites 
him. She always makes up especially well when he 
is likely either to see or, to hear about her. Men like 
to hear the woman they’re spoken about with 
admired, you know, and she never asks him to own up 
about anything that they say of him, when he’s away 
from her. She has the art of holding him on, in fact, 
and she has held him on for five years. ” 

For no reason that she could assign to herself, Jane 
felt inexpressibly offended. She had no right and no 
reason to think that Captain Stafford was made of 
fine porcelain, and Mrs. Collette of effective pottery 
merely ; nevertheless, the notion that there was this 
distinction between them socially had got into her 
head. In her secret heart she felt there would be less 
incongruity in a marriage between her father and Mrs. 
Collette than in one between Mrs. Collette and Captain 
Stafford. 

“After all, why should papa not marry to please 
himself.? ” she said aloud, following out her own train 
of thought. 

Florence stamped her foot, and caught one corner 
of her pretty lip in with a pearly tooth. In the old 
Bath days, when Jane had annoyed her to this extent, 
she had been wont to show her displeasure by slap- 
ping Jane’s face. But she curbed her inclination to do 
so on this occasion by a timely recollection of a cer- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 67 

tain favour she would require at Jane’s hands in the 
course of a few days. 

“There is this reason why papa should not marry, 
either to please himself or to please Mrs. Collette. He 
might have a second family, and as he would be in 
his dotage by the time their mother could make them 
interesting to him, he would probably be wheedled 
into leaving some, if not most, of his money away 
from us to them. No ; he must be stopped from the 
commission of such a folly. / will undertake to either 
force or persuade Mrs. Collette to give him up. ” 

Though at the first blush of the matter Jane had 
been to the full as averse to the prospect of having 
Helen Collette for a stepmother as Florence was now 
showing herself to be, she (Jane) revolted now at the 
arbitrary and domineering way in which -her sister 
spoke. Lord Roydmore had afvvays petted, indulged 
and gratified Florence to the utmost of his power, but 
no thought of his happiness or comfort swayed her 
now, when she was resolving upon a course that she 
knew would be contrary to his will. It was not of 
his honour or happiness that she was thinking. 

It was solely of that money which he would have 
to leave, and which she was already greedily grasp- 
ing in imagination. 

‘ ‘ Interference will come very badly from you, 
Florence. After all, you are not nearly as much con- 
cerned as I am, and if I raise no objection to Mrs. 
Collette, you’re bound to accept her civilly. ” 

Florence laughed. 

“My dear child,” she said, “you make a very 
praiseworthy effort to assert yourself against me, but 
you can’t do it, Jane, you can’t do it. The habit of 
my authority over you is strong upon you still. You 
always were very fond of me, you know, dear, and 
you will be guided by me now. Let me alone ! it will 
be better for you in the end.” 

She spoke very suavely and sweetly, and put her 
hand caressingly and gently on Jane’s as she spoke. 
The latter was puzzled, partially subjugated, but not 
convinced. 


68 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


“When you are loving to me, I would do anything 
in the world for you, Flo ; at least almost anything/' 

“That's right, dear; that’s how it ought to be 
between sisters. I know you again now. You're 
my own affectionate goose of a Jane. I didn’t know 
the aggressive young woman who defied me just 
now.” 

It occurred to Jane that the sooner she left off being 
an affectionate goose the better it would be for her. 
But as she had no desire to upset the present harmoni- 
ous relations between herself and Florence, she kept 
this reflection to herself 

To Geoffrey Graves' surprise, his wife was at her 
very best this night in the little family — deferentially 
attentive and loving to her father, prettily submissive 
and affectionate to himself and apparently devoted 
in a tenderly protecting way to Jane. When they 
had all reassembled in the drawing-room (though her 
soul was eaten out with the weariness of this family 
party), she placed herself on a stool at her father’s 
feet in the old girlish way, and proceeded to cajole 
him by what even Geoffrey, who knew her pretty 
well by this time, took for a display of real filial ten- 
derness and jealous desire to keep as much of his love 
to herself as possible. 

“Dear papa!” she murmured, “it is so good to 
be back with you again. It is so good to know that 
you don’t care a bit for any one else in the world, 
excepting Jack and Jane and me, in spite of what 
horrid people say.” 

Lord Roydmore fidgeted under this monopolising 
and enthralling address, and replied to it rather hesi- 
tatingly,— 

“My dear Florence, a man can’t expect to absorb 
his children’s hearts any more than he can their time. 
You, for instance, have closerand dearer claims upon 
you than I can make. Jane and Jack may follow 
your example any day. I am not a selfish father. 

I do not desire that you should waste your young 
-lives entirely upon your poor old father.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 69 

Florence put her lips to his hand, and held that 
member tight as she said, — 

“ If people could see how happy we are together, 
they wouldn’t say such horrid things to me as they 
have been saying lately.” 

Lord Roydmore was slightly troubled with a cough. 
When the cough had passed, he said, — 

“People are apt to say horrid things about all of 
us. I think we should all do well to avoid listening 
to rumours, especially when they are slanderous.” 

He was thinking of the rumours that were current 
respecting Florence herself at the moment. But that 
adroit young swordswoman took his weapon and 
turned it against himself. 

‘ ‘ I haven’t been able to avoid hearing, but I have 
declined to believe the slanderous rumours, papa. 
They were not nice, not at all nice ; at the same time, 
they were too ridiculous. Fancy people getting up 
the report that you were thinking of marrying, actu- 
ally marrying, Mrs. Collette, Captain Stafford’s Mrs. 
Collette ” 

“ Florence ! you are more than deceitful ; you never 
heard the rumour till I told you of it myself this after- 
noon, told you of it as a fact,” Jane struck in tem- 
pestuously ; “ you are insulting and cruel 

She paused, panic-stricken, in the midst of her 
reproachful torrent of words. Lord Roydmore had 
snatched his hand from his favourite child, and was 
lying back, looking faint and white, against his cush- 
ioned chair. The words, “Captain Stafford’s Mrs. 
Collette,” had stuck a knife into his heart, and that 
heart was pitiably weak. 


70 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


CHAPTER VIIL 

“SENDFORJACK.” 

Since the day when the parable of the carnations had 
been spoken to him Captain Stafford had seen nothing 
of Helen Collette. She was another man’s property 
now, and he would not share the delights of private 
unfettered intercourse with her with any man. 

The report of the engagement between the beau- 
tiful widow and “old Roydmore ” spread rapidly 
through certain circles, but not in that in which the 
Wyndhams revolved. Down in their beautiful home 
at Redhill, the old bachelor brother and maiden sister 
were out of reach of the echoes even of the gossip 
which spread like flames on a dry prairie in the circles 
within circles of fashionable and smart society. As 
usual, they went up to town to see her Iwo or three 
times a week, and as usual her nice, frank, womanly 
letters were found reposing with equal frequency on 
Mr. Wyndham’s breakfast-table. 

Time after time, as these letters, breathing a touch- 
ing and beautiful spirit of grateful affection and reli- 
ance on him, were opened and read by Mr. Wyndham, 
did the good, generous-hearted, humble-minded old 
man resolve to put his fate to the touch, and relieve 
the dear, financially-harassed woman,. to whom he 
was so devotedly and honourably attached, from her 
monetary difficulties. Being guileless as a child, he 
had long ago taken his sister into his confidence con- 
cerning the hopes, fears, wishes, aspirations and 
doubts which he entertained about Helen Collette. 
Unlike the majority of only sisters of an only brother, 
the joyous-natured old maiden lady , thought Helen 
“good enough even for brother Ralph.” She en- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


71 


dowed Mrs. Collette, in fact, with an extraordinary 
number of excellent qualities of which that lady did 
not even know as much as their names. 

“Helen has such a fund of delicate pride,” she 
would say affectionately, when he would read her a 
passage from one of Mrs. Collette s letters, in which 
that lady would pathetically entreat him not to over- 
burden her soul with gratitude by sending her any 
more cheques, which, in spite of her dire need, she 
could not bring herself to accept. 

“Helen has such a fund of delicate pride, Ralph, 
/see things as quickly as most people, and I know 
that in her case there is no feigned reluctance to 
accept the kindnesses you show her. No, no ; every- 
thing about our dear Helen is real, thank God, and 
the sooner she is our Helen in very truth the better 
I shall be pleased.” 

To these remarks of his sister, made in the best of 
all good faith, Mr. Wyndham would reply like the 
true-hearted gentleman he was, — 

‘ ‘ I will never trade on her gratitude, Dorothy. 
Our Helen has a noble nature, which might lead her 
to reward me too generously for the little I have been 
able to do for her. I must protect her against her 
own grateful impulses. I must never dare to ask her 
to crown my life with joy and glory by becoming my 
wife, while there is a chance of a better man than 
myself winning her.” 

“ But there is no ‘better man’ than yourself in the 
case, Ralph. Helen, though she mixes freely with 
the gay world, is untouched, I am sure, by the ful- 
some flatteries which those men of the world who do 
not understand her innate worth pour forth upon her. 
My dear brother, I would never counsel you to seek 
mere beauty and grace in the woman you would 
make your wife. Helen has these gifts which appeal 
to those who see what is on the surface only, but she 
has other and higher gifts. ” 

“ ‘A perfect woman, nobly planned,’” Mr. Wynd- 
ham quoted, with tears in his light grey protruding 


72 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


eyes. “Dorothy, I have always tried to live a life 
upon which I shall not be ashamed to look back when 
my time comes. But if God gives me this good gift, 
if I am ever blessed enough to be the one to whom 
Helen will entrust the charge of her most pure and 
precious life, no one will feel how unworthy I am of 
such honour more keenly than I shall myself’ 

“You think too lowly of yourself, but you can’t 
think too highly of Helen,” old Dorothy Wyndham 
said, blinking away tears for which she could assign 
no cause for shedding, even to herself. “ Helen is 
heart-free, Ralph, and I know that the sentiment of 
gratitude which she entertains towards you, for 
what she herself calls your ‘ unceasing, unresting ’ 
kindness, is stronger than the ‘ love ’ most women 
give the men they marry. My dear brother, you are 
too modest ! Why shouldn’t a woman like our Helen, 
who disregards externals, and can judge character, love 
you for yourself? You are in the prime of life” (Mr. 
Wyndham winced), “you are good and honourable, 
and kind and generous. You were the best son, and 
are the best brother that ever lived. Helen will be a 
happy, as well as a lucky woman, when you ask her 
to be your wife, and she will make you as happy a 
man as you deserve to be.” 

He sat overwhelmed and abashed by this torrent 
of sisterly eloquence. The arguments were the out- 
come of partial affection, he knew ; nevertheless, he 
could not help being more than slightly swayed by 
them. Without having the faintest touch of the Phar- 
isee about him, he knew that he was a good man. 
A good, moral. God-fearing, law-abiding, neighbour- 
loving, Christian gentleman. At the same time, he 
half feared and half suspected that these were not the 
qualities which win the hearts of women, especially of 
such a woman as Helen Collette. As he sat there blush- 
ing, glowing with smiles, and slightly trembling with 
pleased nervous embarrassment caused by his sister’s 
hearty tribute, he caught sight of himself in the merci- 
less looking-glass opposite. The vision might have 


THE HONOlfRABLE JANE. 


73 

been one of sin, so terribly did it shock him. All his 
thoughts a moment before had been of Helen. He 
had conjured up a picture of her beautiful face, of her 
grand, gracious form, of her winning eyes, and her 
easy, graceful movements. He had been gloating 
wildly over this vision, thinking what an earthly Para- 
dise the presence of it would make his home. And 
now this vision was rudely dispelled by the sight of 
himself in the glass. 

He did not blench nor blink nor turn away from 
the reflection. He sat still gazing at it fixedly, pity- 
ing it for being so round and rosy, so inclined to 
double-chin, pendulous cheek, and hairlessness on 
the top of its head. He did not even cease munching 
the toast he had just bitten off, though the movement 
of his jaws was distinctly aged. 

“ Dorothy,” he said presently, ‘‘come here, my 
dear, and stand by me. ” 

She obeyed him wonderingly. 

“We are a well-matched pair, Dorothy, a nice com- 
fortable-looking old couple. Looking at ourselves 
together in that faithful friend (he pointed to the glass), 
there is nothing jarring, nothing incongruous in the 
picture.” 

“Certainly nothing, Ralph. We were always con- 
sidered alike.” 

He took her hand and patted it as it lay upon his 
shoulder. 

“But if a handsome smart man, young enough to 
be your son, sat where I am, and the picture repre- 
sented husband and wife, there would be something 
jarring and incongruous in it then.” 

“A smart, young, handsome man my husband.? 
My dear Ralph, the very idea is shocking, shocking,” 
Miss Dorothy said hastily, bustling back to her seat as 
she spoke. 

“It would be equally shocking if things were re- 
versed, and I sat here with Helen by my side as my 
wife. No, Dorothy, my dream of folly is over. That 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


74 

true friend yonder has shown me the truth too plainly. 
Helen shall be our daughter. ’’ 

Miss Wyndham sat thoughtfully silent for a minute 
or two. All her pride as well as all her love, had been 
invested in her brother from the days of her earliest 
childhood. She had never seen either girl or woman 
whom she considered good enough for him until she 
met with and fell under Helen’s sway. Then she suc- 
cumbed to the charm of a woman who had the rare 
gift of interesting herself in and making herself inter- 
esting to other women. Helen's troubles and suc- 
cesses, Helen’s social aches and pains, were all freely 
and frankly confided to the sympathetic ear of dear 
old Dorothy Wyndham, in a way that made the latter 
pick up Helen’s burdens and try to bear the whole 
weight of them upon, her own plump round-about 
shoulders. 

In all her life, old Miss Wyndham had never either 
told a lie or feigned a feeling. If she neither liked 
nor approved of people, she held her tongue, and also 
held aloof from them. But if ever any one became 
the recipient of her love and trust, she became the most 
doggedly obtused of partisans, the most blindly con- 
fiding of friends. Helen Collette had detected this 
special trait in Dorothy’s character the first time she 
met her. The rest was easy. 

It was very hard for the dear old lady to hear her 
brother renounce that glorious prospect of matrimo- 
nial bliss which she had chalked out for him. In her 
eyes he was still a “well-looking young man, with 
a beautiful expression.” Though she shrank with 
genuine modest horror from the suggestion of the 
possibility of her ever wronging youth by allying her- 
self with it, she felt no such shrinking where her 
brother was concerned. Helen, in her eyes, was as 
perfect as a woman can be, or needs to be. And 
Helen was “good enough for Ralph,” that was all. 

“You think too much of mere externals, and you 
under-estimate yourself, Ralph,” she said at last. 
Then, as he only shook his head rather sadly in reply, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


75 

she tried to change the current of his thoughts by- 
going to the window and calling to the peacocks. 

It was such a beautiful scene that lay stretched 
out before her. The sloping sweep of velvet lawn 
was bordered by grand old elms and oaks, perfumed 
lindens, weeping ashes, copper beeches and two or 
three dark stalwart fir trees standing stiff and stark, 
like sentinels among their less severe brethren. A 
little apart from the rest, on the left, a mighty cedar 
stood alone. A cedar that had many a tale to tell, 
could it but have spoken, for under its broad sweep- 
ing branches the Canterbury pilgrims had rested to 
take their needful rest and temperate fare. 

Above the tree tops, the waving line of Surrey hills 
in the blue far distance shut out the sights and 
sounds of the world beyond in that direction in the 
pleasantest manner possible. At her feet the pea- 
cocks perked themselves, stepping backwards and 
forward mincingly to a measure of their own. A cat, 
whose long grey silky hair was an inheritance from a 
remote Persian ancestress, had coiled itself up becom- 
ingly on a crimson, velvet-cushioned chair under 
the verandah. A stately, golden-yellow greyhound 
watched the peacocks with jealous disdain as they 
became the recipients of several tit-bits from the 
breakfast table. A couple of gardeners were rolling a 
lawn that already resembled a billiard table. It was 
was all so very beautiful that “it ought to have a 
mistress in keeping with it,” old Miss Wyndham 
thought half hopefully, as she recalled Helen’s always 
encouraging manner to “dear old Ralph,” half-regret- 
fully as poor old Ralph’s hesitation and self-deprecia- 
tion rose vividly to her mind. 

“Things must take their course, I know,” she said 
to herself resignedly, as she finished her morning 
pastime of feeding the peacocks; “but as either 
sister or daughter, Helen will always find a home 
here in my heart.” 

For two or three days after that happy evening 
spent in the bosom of his family, with his favourite 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


76 

child at his knee, Lord Roydmore had been ailing. 
That was the word his old soldier servant, who had 
clung to him from the time he left the service all 
through the. poverty-nipped days at Bath, up to the 
comparatively brilliant present, used in describing 
his master’s symptoms. “ His Lordship was ailing. 
Not ill, no, certainly, miss, not ill, " (this in answer to 
Jane’s anxious inquiries), “but ailing and wanting 
rest. Perhaps Mrs. Graves being so lively, would be 
kind enough not to disturb him.” 

‘ ‘ Papa must be very ill if he doesn’t want to be 
disturbed by Mrs. Graves, Long.? If he said I was 
to keep out of the room, I could understand it. Papa 
never did much care about seeing me ” 

“ His Lordship wants you now. Miss, now as soon 
as you go to him, without Mrs. Graves,” the old 
iron-bound soldier with the soft heart cut in tremu- 
lously. Long had never loved his master’s eldest 
daughter, even in the days of her unfledged arrogance 
and pettifogging power at Bath. He had disliked 
her for the way in which she had stinted the little 
household in order that she might appropriate some 
of the housekeeping money to her own private needs. 
He had disliked her for the light-hearted way in which 
she had given endless trouble to himself, and every 
one else whom she could command, without ever 
thinking it worth her while to offer them a word of 
thanks. But above all, he had disliked her for the way 
in which she had kicked her sister Jane into the hind- 
most place and kept her there with a strong hand, 
while she had turned a smiling, wheedling false face 
to her father. Long knew Miss Florence to the very 
marrow of her delicately shaped small bones, and liked 
her as little as it was possible for a man to do under 
the circumstances. “She had always been a sly ’un,” 
he told himself, “and now she was a bad ’un into the 
bargain,” he believed, for the rumours which had 
reached her father respecting her gambling and other 
propensities had filtered through to Long’s ears also. 
'Phere was righteous wrath in the old servant’s heart 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


77 

against this daughter of his master’s, who was, he 
truly believed bringing her father s sparse grey locks 
with sorrow to the grave. Accordingly, he now felt a 
double pleasure in summoning Jane to her father’s 
sick room — the pleasure of exalting Miss Herries and 
of abasing Mrs. Graves. 

Lord Roydmore was lying on a sofa in his dressing- 
gown when his daughter went to him. He had just 
completed his invalid toilette, and Jane felt a sensa- 
tion of repulsion, not to him — not to her father — but 
to that darkly-dyed hair and that faint touch of some- 
thing that was distinctly not the hue of his own blood 
showing on his worn, wan cheek. He was wrapped 
up in a golden-brown velvet dressing-gown, with a 
girdle round his waist, and the blinds were lowered 
to a degree that made it impossible for him to see to 
read in the room. The secret why these prepara- 
tions had been made oozed out presently. After 
looking nervously behind her in order to make quite 
sure that Florence was not secreted somewhere in 
the folds of Jane’s tea-gown, he began : • 

“ I want to send you on rather a delicate mission, 
my child ; I want you to go and fetch Mrs. Collette, 
and bring her to see me without Florence knowing 
anything about it. I have not been able to write for 
several days, and I have not been able to spare Long 
to go with a message. Helen will be anxious. You 
must go and bring her to see me. Long and you are 
the only ones I can trust.” 

He looked so appallingly haggard and ill as he 
spoke, that even if Jane had hardened her heart 
against Mrs. Collette previously, she would have 
relented on hearing his appeal made with such quiver- 
ing lips, backed by imploring glances from such hol- 
low eyes. 

“I will go at once, papa,” she said, kissing his 
clammy brow with her fresh warm young lips ; “I 
will bring her here, and — ” she paused for an instant, 
threw her head up, and added quietly, “ Florence will 
not dare to interfere, even if she sees Mrs. Collette.” 


78 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“ I would rather they did not meet ; I would rather 
avoid a row,” he said fretfully. “You don’t seem to 
understand ! I am below par, consequently shaky. 
It is not that I should permit any interference from 
Florence, but I want to avoid anything like a scene. 
Now go, my dear ; you are wasting time ; bring 
Helen here without delay. She must have been very 
anxious.” 

He had raised himself upon his elbow while he 
had been speaking, and now he lay back, panting 
and pallid even under that tinge of false bloom on 
his face. Jane shuddered as she turned away ; a pre- 
monition of' something dreadful being about to happen, 
something for which they all, every one of them, 
were unprepared, assailed her. At the door she 
turned to look at him, and he beckoned her back. 

“I want your brother ; send for Jack. I want to 
introduce him to Helen — to his future mother,’’ he 
whispered, and she assented to his request, as she 
would have assented now if he had asked for the 
moon or a baby’s rattle. 

For three or four days, Mrs. Collette had neither 
heard nor seen anything of the man Whom she was 
pledged to marry, and though personally he had 
grown distasteful to her, it would have been unnat- 
ural if she had not experienced a few qualms of 
anxiety on the subject. She knew that his master- 
ful married daughter had come up to stay with him, 
and by intuition she knew that this married daughter 
was in opposition to her for other reasons than those 
connected with Lord Roydmore. In the world in 
which Captain Stafford lived, his long-drawn-out in- 
fatuation for Helen Collette was an old tale ofttold. 
It was more than likely that pretty FloreiK:e Graves 
had heard of it, and rumour said once upon a time 
pretty Florence Graves had tried every art she knew 
to gain the empire over his heart. Putting these 
things together, Mrs. Collette felt she was not very 
far out in assuming that if Florence could give her 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 79 

(Helen) a fall with Lord Roydmore, she would do so. 

While still in perplexity and doubt, and before Jane 
came on her mission, Mr. Wyndham called with a 
petition that still further complicated the tangled skein 
of Helen’s life. 


CHAPTER IX. 

“ YOU HAVE COME TO ME, MY OWN ! ” 

Uncertainty and perplexity, indignation at being in- 
terfered with antagonistically in the matter of her 
marriage by the same woman who had once dared to 
attempt to annex her lover, were in absolute dominion 
over Helen’s mind that day, when Mr. Wyndham 
appeared, oddly enough without his sister ! 

Helen was so accustomed to see the cosy, genial 
old pair trotting in together, that for a moment she 
experienced a shock as the thought crossed her mind 
that Miss Dorothy must be dead ! Old Ralph’s face 
looked preternaturally grave. Altogether, the signs 
of sorrow about him were sufficiently strong to startle 
Helen into saying, — 

“ What is the matter ? Where is Miss Dorothy ? ” 
“Dorothy is well, quite well, my dear ; she sends 

her best love to you, and hopes ” 

He paused, struggled with a little throat difficulty, 
and then, with the gloom deepening on his face as he 
remembered how old and fat he was, he went on, — 
“ Dorothy sends you this little note, my dear, and 
a ring that belonged to our mother, and that is con- 
sequently of priceless worth to us. ” 

Helen took the note and ring with one of the 
sweetest lopks of gratitude of which her well-fringed, 
soft fathomless grey eyes were capable. Until she had 
the ring on her finger, and was reading the note, it did 
not occur to Mr. Wyndham that he had been specially 
instructed not to give her either until he had won 
her consent to be his wife. 


8o 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


For it had come to this, that his sisters persua- 
sions, joined to his own inclinations, had overcome his 
scruples against uniting his December to her ripe, 
warm, beautiful July, and to-day, though he feared 
his fate terribly, he had come to put it to the touch. 

Helen read through the note rapidly, calmly, and 
with the most complete comprehension of its meaning. 
It hailed her as sister, it laid all authority over all 
things beautiful down at their Redhill home at her 
feet. It thanked her with touching gratitude for bring- 
ing such joy into the life of the writers dear brother. 
In fact, altogether, it put another very strong string 
on to Helen’s bow. 

“ I gave you that note too soon,” he said tremu- 
lously, when she had read it, and sat with downcast 
face twiddling the ring round her finger. 

Silence was safer than speech ! Helen took the 
safer part. 

“You are shocked, outraged at my presumption, 
and no wonder ! ” he went on, with miserable humil- 
ity ; “forgive me, my child, it was the desire of the 
moth for the star ; but Fm such an old moth that I 
ought to have known better. Forgive me ! ” 

Helen’s mind had glanced like lightning through 
all the possibilities of her own case. Truly she was 
engaged to marry Lord Roydmore, and truly did she 
yearn to occupy the position Lord Roydmore could 
give her. But for several days — dayg that in the 
gallop of London life seemed to place an immeasur- 
able period of time between them — she had heard 
nothing from her hitherto attentive and impassioned 
swain. In fighting her way to the front, Helen had 
received many a hard knock, many a bad bruise. 
What wonder that she longed for the visible rewards 
of her distinguished service in her own cause .? — what 
wonder that she was ready to sail into any port out 
of the storm } 

Her mind glanced like lightning through all the 
possibilities of the case. She was between two stools. 
Lord Roydmore might fail her, was failing her ac- 


The honourable jane. 8 i 

cording to all outward seeming, under family pressure. 
This true, solid, old mass of flesh and sincerity 
would feel himself honoured if she took him as a for- 
lorn hope, and would never reproach her for her 
inability to give him more than the merest gratitude 
for all that he lavished upon her. 

‘ ‘ I have nothing to forgive, and what you are 
pleased to call the star shall give the moth its desire,” 
she was saying. Her hands were in his, his good old 
hairless lips were pressing hers, when the door opened 
injudiciously for once, and Jane Herries came in, 
straight and swift as an arrow, with the words, — 

“ Dear Mrs. Collette, papa wants you at once ; he 
is ill, so ill he has sent for Jack. He wants us all to 
recognise and receive you as our future mother.” 

Jane had been preparing a dozen neat little speeches 
on her way over, but this one came from her heart, 
and was unrehearsed. That it was effectively deliv- 
ered there can be little doubt, judging from the almost 
stunning effect it produced upon the thrilled though 
limited audience. 

As the last words flew from her lips, Jane realised 
that in sincere unconsciousness she had exposed a 
woman who was cruelly deceiving not only her (Jane’s) 
father, but also the honest-looking old gentleman who 
was looking as much ashamed of himself as if he, and 
not Helen, were guilty of trickery and perfidy. Any- 
thing that savoured ever so slightly of underhandedness 
and double-dealing was repugnant to the girl. But 
she was largely endowed with that rare spirit of loyalty 
to her own sex which makes a woman shrink from 
being the instrument of humiliating torture to another 
woman. Inexperienced as she was in worldly love 
and intrigue, her generous nature stood Helen Col- 
lette in better stead in this emergency than any case- 
hardened old feminine diplomat could have done. 

“ You will spare Mrs. Collette to come and see poor 
papa now he is so ill, won’t you.?” she said, with 
pretty courtesy, to poor, hot, embarrassed Mr. 
Wyndham. “She has been so kind to me that we 


82 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


look upon her as one of us ; don't we ?" she added re- 
assuringly to Helen, and under cover of these words 
of tact Helen managed to get out of the room. 

Of course it was wrong of her to have tacitly 
accepted Mr. Wyndham’s offer while she was distinct- 
ly pledged to marry Lord Roydmore. But she had a 
strong instinct that from some cause or other — what 
she could not determine, for the atmosphere of the last 
few days had been full of uncertainty — Lord Royd- 
more was slipping from her. Her battle with life had 
been a hard one. Fair as appearances were around 
her, they were maintained at the cost of unceasing 
management and finesse. The cheques that fell in 
now and again from the lavish hands of the Wynd- 
hams did not cover the expenditure which Helen, as 
a beauty and a society woman, felt not only entitled 
to, but bound to devote to her pretty and popular self. 
Sometimes, when she was lying awake at night, her 
innumerable bills would dance about like a hideous 
phantasmagoria, and she would feel as if she were in 
a lost battle, borne down by the flying. After such 
nights as these, the necessity for an immediate mar- 
riage with some man — any man — who could put her 
upon the solid golden pedestal of a good substantial 
income would be very much impressed upon her. 
Such nights as these had been frequent of late. It 
was with a natural feeling of elation that she reflected, 
while dressing for her visit to Lord Roydmore, that 
she had definitely accepted the other old man, and 
could hold him fast. 

There was a momentary difficulty about saying 
good-bye to him. It was impossible to take a proper- 
ly effective binding farewell of him before Jane ' at 
least, if not impossible, it would be sadly indiscreet. 
The difficulty was but a momentary one, though. 
Helen was a woman of resource, one who seldom 
allowed herself to be baffled. She had no little 
boudoir to which to summon her ancient but ardent 
swain, but the dining-room would answer the pur- 
pose of my lady’s bower for once. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


83 

She opened the drawing-room door and stood in 
the entrance, looking superbly handsome, and as cool 
as if she had not been caught by the daughter of one 
man to whoni she was engaged, in the act of kissing 
another. 

“My dining-room clock has stopped, Mr. Wynd- 
ham ; you are the only person who sets all its 
machinery going properly, will you come and wind it 
up for me.? I will not detain you more than a 
minute, Jane,'’ she added, turning with a winning air 
of affectionate familiarity towards the young lady 
who might possibly become her step-daughter. 

‘ ' Papa will be impatient ; he always is when he 
doesn’t feel well, and then he will scold me,” Jane 
protested, but Helen had piloted Mr. Wyndham out 
of the room by this time, and Jane’s remonstrance fell 
upon space, and failed to enlighten Mr. Wyndham as 
to the real relations which existed between his Helen 
and Lord Roydmore. 

Back ages ago, in his long past, almost forgotten 
youth, Ralph Wyndham had had a romance. It had 
been a very brief and commonplace one, but it had 
left its mark upon him for years. He had been en- 
gaged to an innocent-looking little country-town girl, 
who had jilted him and married the riding-master 
whom Ralph had engaged to teach her to sit upon the 
horse which he (Ralph) had given her. Her decep- 
tion had not soured him, but it had hurt him horribly. 
It had, so to say, taken his taste for women out of 
him for many a long year. But Helen had restored 
his long-lost faith to him, and he worshipped her 
with an idolatry that few, if any, of the younger men 
who buzzed about her had ever felt. 

It was a plain, a very plain, podgy little body, 
but a real big chivalrous soul dwelt within it. When 
she had swept and shuffled him into the dining-room, 
she shut the door smartly and began,' — 

‘ ‘ Don’t bother about the clock ; that is all right, I 
only wanted to give you the chance of saying good- 
bye to me properly, Ralph, and to tell you that you 


S4 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

must not publish our engagement till I see you 
again.” 

He stood on tiptoe and kissed her, then called her 
the “Queen of his life,” and promised to abide by 
her decision in all things, even to the extent of his 
not proclaiming his triumph until she gave him per- 
mission to do so. 

“Excepting to Dorothy. You will let me tell 
Dorothy to-night.? It will make her so happy.” 

“No, no, no. Dorothy shall be the first to hear 
it, of course, but not even Dorothy must hear it to- 
night. I am more romantic than you think, Ralph. 
1 want to have the knowledge confined to just our- 
selves for a little while. It's so sweet to know that 
you are mine and I am yours, and that no one so 
much as suspects it yet.” 

He swallowed the sugared pill at a gulp, but he 
did not like it. 

“ I am so proud, so happy, so blessed, that I want 
every one who knows me to know it,” he said 
humbly. 

‘ ‘ My dear Ralph, most people who know you will 
think you are doing a very foolish thing in taking an 
extravagant, penniless woman to wife. Come back 
now and say good-bye with composure to Miss 
Herries. Don’t look at me any more. You give 
yourself and me away too painfully when you permit 
yourself to gaze.” 

“You have taken off the ring ! ” he said reproach- 
fully. 

“ Of course I have ! a big, blazing diamond like 
that would attract every one’s attention, and tell the 
story far too lucidly. ” 

“That is Dorothy’s gift ” he was beginning. 

“ Then I will wear it at once,” she interrupted. 

“ My ring, the symbol of our plighted troth, must 
be made for you expressly,” he called out after her, 
as she flew up the stairs to get Dorothy’s gift. Un- 
intentionally he raised his voice, and Jane Herries 
heard him as she sat in the silent drawing-room, 
lO 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 85 

struggling with her own impatience and with a sense 
of being de irop. 

“ Poor, silly old man ! the girl thought contempt- 
uously ? but there was not much wrath in her heart 
against Helen. Jane was too young to feel any 
sympathy with the loves and woes, the joys and 
pains of besotted age ; even though her own father 
was one of the bamboozled victims. It struck her 
that they were both silly old men to allow themselves 
to be so befooled by a woman. But she pardoned 
much in the woman who had either resigned the 
task, or failed in it, of victimising Harry Stafford. 


There was an air of suppressed emotional excite- 
ment about the house when Jane returned to it, ac- 
companied by Mrs. Collette. Jack, the son and heir, 
had arrived, and had been so seriously alarmed by 
his father’s condition that he had sent for the doctor 
at once. They were waiting for the verdict now, 
and even Florence was temporarily subdued by her 
brother’s evident anxiety about their father. She 
had told Jack everything she knew, and much that 
she imagined, concerning hlrs. Collette, and had 
been a good deal disgusted by the unconcern with 
which he had listened to her statements. 

“Engaged to Mrs Collette, is he.? Poor, dear old 
dad, I’m afraid he’s in a bad way, Flo. Fm glad 
Jane is gone for the widow ; he will be happier 
when he has seen her. Ripping handsome woman 
she is, too ; but I thought she was booked for Stafford, 
the V. C. man.” 

“She is a horrid, intriguing woman,” Florence 
said loftily, in reply to this. “As to her being 
handsome, she may have been so once, but she’s 
ever so old.” 

‘ ‘ Do you know her } ” 

“ No ; but I have heard of her from several people. 
Captain Stafford himself among the number ; she is 
padded and painted and powdered ” 


86 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


“ I'm sure Stafford never told you that ; he’s not 
a fellow to give away a woman he has really liked,” 
Jack was saying as Helen came in, and they were 
unable to discuss her any rfiore. 

She looked rather sorrowful and very pathetically 
sweet as Jack greeted her gravely, and she was in- 
troduced to Mr. and Mrs. Graves. Her manner was 
so unpretentious, so unexacting, so fraught with 
sympathy for the children who were in anxiety about 
their parent, so charged with readiness to put herself 
in the background, that they could literally find no 
fault in her. When at last the doctor sent for Jack, 
and told him that Lord Roydmore had been suffering 
from a heart attack, but had now completely rallied 
and was out of danger for a time, Helen volunteered 
in the prettiest way imaginable to resign the pleasure 
of seeing her old friend rather than run the risk of 
disturbing or exciting him. But a peremptory mes- 
sage brought by Long immediately afterwards altered 
the aspect of things. 

“ His Lordship desired Mrs. Collette and the whole 
family to come to him at once.” 

For once Helen Collette was taken unawares, and 
was unprepared for what was to follow. Jack, the 
most important member of the Herries family (after 
Lord Roydmore), had received and treated her with 
a kindly, respectful attention that showed her he 
knew the terms on which she stood with his father. 
Her engagement was an open secret, in fact, but 
when she walked into the sick-room she had no idea as 
to whether she would stand to and fulfil it, or extri- 
cate herself by a free confession of her relations with 
wealthy, liberal old Mr. Wyndham. 

She was not given time to determine her own line 
of action. Lord Roydmore, propped up by pillows, 
and with a flush not of health but of fictitious excite- 
ment and drug-given strength on his face, stretched 
his shaking hands out eagerly to her the moment his 
eyes rested on her well-borne, well-developed figure 
and witching face, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 87 

'‘My own, you have come to me,” he said, with 
ardour that contrasted painfully with his old, worn-out, 
shattered appearance. “Jack, Florence, Jane, my 
dear, dear children, this lady is my promised wife, 
and — my time is short, I feel it — I have the special 
licence here, and the vicar of this parish will be here 
in ten minutes to make us two one for the remainder 
of my sojourn upon earth.” 

He fell back, relinquishing her hand, falling away 
with pathetic weakness among his pillows as he 
spoke, and Helen made up her mind at once. It was 
obvious that he was dying. She would gratify his 
last whim, marry him, and make his last moments 
happy. Mr. Wyndham could never blame her for 
such a womanly, philanthropic action. So, in spite 
of the doctor’s declaration that the excitement would 
hasten the inevitable end, married they were when 
the vicar came, and it was to Lady Roydmore that 
the household deferred from that moment. 


CHAPTER X. 

“ I TOLD YOU / WAS GOING.” 

Mr. Wyndham’s placid, composed, wealth-endowed 
life had been a very happy one. Up to the time of 
his knowing Helen Collette, he had never known 
what it was to have an ungratified desire. It must 
be understood that all his desires were innocent and 
honourable. He was not a good man in spite of 
temptation. He was good because he had never 
been assailed by temptation in any evil form. When 
he felt his strong friendship for the beautiful widow 
was merging into love for her, he had taken himself 
to task severely, calling himself “an old fool, who 
deserved to suffer every pang that unrequited love 
can inflict, because of his folly.” But when, against 


88 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


his sober judgment, he had asked for and obtained 
the desire of his heart, then, indeed, did he feel that 
Fate had made him her favourite, and bestowed her 
choicest favours upon him. Life was very sweet to 
the true, trustful old man as he went back to Redhill 
that day, with the proud knowledge in his heart that 
the star of his existence had given her sweet, womanly 
word that henceforth she would shine for him alone. 

His sister Dorothy was waiting for him under the 
verandah when he drove up to the house, and before 
either of them could speak, their eyes met, and they 
told and understood the whole story. 

“It has been the wish of my life to see you happy 
with a wife, Ralph ; I see I am to have that wish 
gratified,” she said, as he stepped down by her side, 
tucked his hand under her arm, and led her into the 
house. 

“ My dear sister, I am too blessed, too happy ” 

He almost sobbed the words out, and she patted 
his hand soothingly, as she had often done in their 
youth, when he had come to her with some brief, 
boyish sorrow. 

“ I felt so sure that it would turn out as I prayed it 
might, that I have been to look at a house in Reigate, 
to which I shall retire when you bring your bride 
home, dear Ralph.” 

“You will live with us, surely.? Helen will wish 
it.” 

“ No, no; the picture will be a prettier one with- 
out me ; but I shall see you both every day, I feel 
sure of that. Was she pleased with my ring .? ” 

“More than pleased, and she expressed what she 
felt so sweetly. Dorothy, God is more than good to 
me in giving me such a woman as Helen ” 

“Don’t undervalue yourself, Ralph. I appreciate 
our dear Helen as fully as you do, but she gains much 
in gaining you, and she is so noble that she will admit 
it, and take pride in it.” 

“You must go up and see her to-morrow ; we will 
get up early, and take her out for a drive in the 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A ATE. 


89 

country. When I left her just now, she was going to 
a house of mourning, I fear. Miss Herries came for 
her, as they were in distress about a sudden illness 
with which Lord Roydmore was seized. It was very 
sweet to me to see the way in which that girl turned 
to my Helen in her trouble. It was very hard to have 
to part with her the minute after she had given herself 
to me, but Helen is not the woman to let pleasure 
interfere with duty for a single moment, and she felt 
it her duty to go and comfort her suffering friends.'' 

“ Are they such friends ? I was not aware of that, 
Ralph. Have you ever met Lord Roydmore, or any 
of his family, at Helen's house.? ” 

Unfortunately, no ; I have always just missed 
him, for which I have been very sorry, as Helen has 
almost filial affection for the poor hypochondriacal 
gentleman, whom she knew many years ago, when she 
was a mere child. She is evidently fond of the daughter, 
the Honourable Jane. A beautiful girl Jane Herries 
is, by the way, really a beautiful girl. I think Helen 
would like to make up a match between that hand- 
some soldier fellow. Captain Stafford, and Miss Her- 
ries. ” 

“ Is any time fixed for your wedding, Ralph ? " 

He blushed like a boy as he answered, — 

“Nothing is settled excepting the great fact that she 
is to be my wife. What I shall propose to-morrow is 
that we marry in about a month — that will give her 
time to get her trousseau, you know — and go abroad 
while this house is being put in order and refur- 
nished. ” 

‘ ‘ Refurnished ? 

“Certainly ; to a great extent, that is, the drawing 
and dining rooms, and her own apartments must be 
furnished according to her taste entirely." 

“ Then the refurnishing shall be my wedding pres- 
ent to Helen,” the generous old sister said heartily. 

‘ ‘ I feel I can’t do enough for the woman who has 
brought such joy, such pure, noble joy into your life, 
Ralph." 


90 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


They were off to town betimes the next day, laden 
with the choicest fruits from hot-houses and vineries, 
and the rarest flowers from the conservatories. The 
arrangement the head gardener had made of a huge 
group of the palest yellow roses — so pale that they 
seemed half-fainting with delight at their own sweet- 
ness — did not please Mr. Wyndham’s taste this day. 

“That high-handled basket is all very well for 
ordinary occasions,” he said to Dorothy, tenderly 
poking his fat old finger, which was trembling with 
happiness, in among the flowers. “We must stop 
at Storr & Mortimer’s, where I am having her ring 
made, and get a silver bowl to hold the roses. I heard 
Helen say once that a silver bowl was the only 
worthy receptacle for yellow roses of this tint. ” 

So the silver bowl, big enough for an infant’s bath, 
was got, and the roses were transferred into it from 
the graceful, despised basket. Then the old brother 
and sister, who still took a childish delight in lavish- 
ing rich gifts upon those they loved, went on in a 
flutter of happy expectation to the home of the well- 
appreciated betrothed. 

There was a sense of quiet, almost an air of chill, 
about the interior, when, the door being opened at 
length by a servant, who looked aggrievedly unpre- 
pared for such early callers, they stepped into the hall. 
Helen was not a quiet woman, as a rule. Her clear, 
cheery voice was generally heard ringing out some 
order or direction when she knew whose was the ring 
that signalled a visitor. Surely she must have known 
this morning that none other than her affianced hus- 
band would have invaded her thus early .? A sudden, 
stabbing suspicion that she “was ill ” shot through 
Mr. Wyndham’s heart. He could hardly frame his 
question for sheer nervousness, but the answer came 
promptly. 

“ Missus is quite well, sir, thank you. She’s stay- 
ing at Lord Roydmore’s. There was a note came for 
her maid last night, and she packed up some of mis- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


91 

sus’ things and went off in the carriage that brought 
the note, without saying a word.’’ 

Mr. Wyndham’s face fell visibly. 

“ It is rather selfish of them to detain Helen, know- 
ing as they must how she is situated with regard to 
you,” Miss Wyndham said gently. “What shall we 
do, Ralph .? ” 

“I shall follow her, and hear if her presence is 
absolutely essential to those poor young people in 
their distress. You had better wait h^re, Dorothy, 
my dear, till our return.” 

Miss Dorothy shook her head. 

The time will seem shorter, Ralph, if I am shop- 
ping instead of waiting here alone. I shall go into 
The Grove and look at Whiteley’s. Dear, dear ! I 
bought the ribbons and flowers for my first ball at 
Whiteley’s when he had only one little shop, with 
himself and two lady assistants. I shall pass my 
time very pleasantly ; don’t think of me, don’t hurry, 
Ralph. ” 

The hansom which conveyed Mr. Wyndham over 
to Lord Roydmore’s house was well-horsed and 
smartly driven, but it seemed to him to crawl with 
malignant perversity. When he stepped out, it was 
with such almost boyish impatience that he slipped 
and hurt his knee on the threshold of his rival’s door. 
The faint, sickening sensation, which is the invariable 
accompaniment to any fracture or displacement of 
the knee-cap, assailed him, and it was with a painful 
effort that he managed to hobble into the hall and 
reach a chair. 

“Mrs. Collette is here, I understand.?” he began ; 
“ give her my card, and ask her if she will kindly 
come here and speak to me. Unfortunately I feel 
unable to walk a step farther. ” 

The sudden marriage by special licence of the day 
before had sent an electric shock through the whole 
household. The excitement had been so great, in 
fact, that every one was hoping for more. If Lord 
Roydmore had died from the effects of the agitation, 


92 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


his faithful retainers would have pulled long faces, 
and spoken in the suppressed accents of spurious grief. 
But in what they had of heart they would have felt a 
melancholy pleasure in the serio-comedy ending in a 
tragedy. The family had all borne the unexpected 
introduction of Mrs. Collette into the first place 
in it with what the servants thought tame toler- 
ation. Accordingly, now it occurred to the butler 
and footman that they might as well have the 
pleasure of seeing this poor, unconscious gentleman 
get “a bloomin’ surprise!” They pitied him for 
the anguish his displaced knee-cap was causing him, 
'but that pain, they intuitively felt, would be nothing 
to that which he would endure when he learnt that 
the Mrs. Collette he was inquiring for so tenderly was 
transformed into Lady Roydmore. 

“You take the card to her ladyship, while I get the 
gentleman a glass of sherry ; he’ll need it, ” the butler 
muttered in a low voice. Still, low as it was, Mr. 
Wyndham caught the word “ladyship,” and felt 
puzzled by it, but not alarmed. 

As he sat there alone, trying to believe that his 
knee was only bruised, and that as soon as he felt 
less faint^ he would be able to get up and walk he 
heard voices mingling in lively badinage coming 
down the stairs. 

The first was a man’s voice, a young clear, polished- 
toned voice, that struck agreeably on Mr. Wyndham’s 
ear. 

“ My dear mamma,” it was saying, “ I shall claim 
all the privileges of a son — of a pet son, in fact. I 
shall go back with you to your own house, and 
destroy the photographs of all the good-looking fel- 
lows I find ” 

“ Jack, I won’t let you come back with me to-day,” 
Helen’s voice answered, half comically, half earnestly. 
“ I have to break the great news to my servants, and 
give them notice to quit me ; and well, altogether, 
you will be in my way for once, my dear, new son.” 

They were in view of Mr. Wyndham now, crossing 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


93 

the hall from the foot of the stairs towards the 
entrance-door, near which he sat, Helen herself look- 
ing- brilliantly beautiful and happy in a handsome 
walking- costume, and a good-looking young fellow, 
who had hold of her hand with an easy air of familiar- 
ity, and who was pretending to button her glove. At 
sight of Mr. Wyndham, pallid with pain and a ghastly 
sense of dread of the unknown. Jack Herries uttered 
an exclamation of surprise, and Helen a little cry of 
confusion. It was ghastly to her to be threatened 
with an ignominious, commonplace, unromantic over- 
throw in these first hours of triumph. For she had 
triumphed. Already she had won Jack to enlist under 
her banner, and swear to fight her battles, by the 
power of that physical beauty which she so well 
knew how to show in its most seductive light before 
the eyes of men. By this power, and by the sweet 
desire to please which she could put into her manner 
at any given moment, she had triumphed. But she felt 
that she had need of all these munitions of feminine 
war now, as she came unexpectedly upon the man to 
whom she had pledged herself the day before, and 
who still looked upon her as his betrothed wife. 

‘‘ You are in pain,” she cried, putting her hand on 
his shoulder; “my dear Mr. Wyndham, you must 
only speak to tell me how you are hurt. Your knee.? 
Oh ! I have always heard what a ghastly, sickly 
pain it is. Jack, Mr. Herries, will you order an 
ambulance to be fetched, and I will accompany my 
poor friend back to my own house, and send for his 
sister ” 

“ Dorothy is in town, Helen,” Mr. Wyndham said, 
hopelessly hanging on to her hand, and trying to 
make her look into his poor, plump, miserable face. 
“She came up to congratulate us,” he went on, but 
Flelen hushed him down authoritatively. 

‘ ‘ Not one word more till you are resting at my 
house, and a doctor and Dorothy are with you,” she 
said aloud. Then she followed Jack Herries a little 
apart and whispered, — 


^4 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

“A dear, old, valued and eccentric friend of mine, 
Jack to whom the news of my sudden marriage will 
probably give some offence. He will think he ought 
to have been consulted. I will stay with him alone 
till the ambulance comes. The petulance of pain 
might make him say something before a third person 
which would be misleading, disagreeable for me, in 
fact, and a source of regret to him ; therefore don t 
let either Florence or Jane come near him.’ 

Jack nodded acquiescence to her request cheerfully, 
but he thought. “Poor old Johnnie, she has made a 
fool of you, has she .? Well, the next best thing to 
fooling a pretty woman is to be fooled by one, and 
my new mamma is a jolly pretty woman and no mis- 
take. 


Lady Roydmore knew that Mr. Wyndham was too 
true and proud a gentleman to question servants, or 
even to lend an ear to their utterances. Accordingly, 
she left him with the butler and footman without dis- 
trust, while they waited for the ambulance. Mean- 
time, she herself went back to the chamber of her legal 
lord. A few words of explanation from her own lips 
would be serviceable, in case anything should leak out 
during her absence. 

Lord Roydmore was sitting up in a large comfort- 
able chair by an open window, with a little table be- 
side him covered with flowers, newspapers and letters. 
He was looking so much stronger and better than he 
had done on the previous day, that Helen felt there 
had been something like trickery in his hastening on 
their marriage on the plea that he feared speedy dis- 
solution. However, he was hers to make the best of 
now, and she honestly determined to do it. 

“An old gentleman called Wyndham — a very old 
friend of mine — came here to inquire for me just now, 
as his sister has come up to see me from Redhill, and 
he fell and has hurt his knee-cap. Jack has gone or 
sent for an ambulance, and I shall take him to my 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


95 

old house, and have him nursed there by his sister,” 

She put her hand on her husband’s shoulder, and 
bent towards him as she spoke. A sickly odour of 
drugs and cosmetics hung about him. She drew back 
quickly, showing the physical disgust she felt more 
plainly than she had intended. 

“ It will be quite enough if Long goes with him ; 
send Long,” he suggested, or rather ordered, in a tone 
that got up his newly-made wife’s mettle at once. 

“ I told you / was going with him ; you must not 
try to make up or unmake my mind for me, Royd- 
more. ” 

She spoke brightly. It was not in her programme 
to quarrel with or annoy him, but that he should not 
alter that programme was her fixed determination. 


CHAPTER XL 

HELEN STARTS FRESH. 

Miss Wyndham had done shopping and gone back to 
Mrs. Collette’s house long before her brother, escorted 
by Helen, was conveyed thither. The little broug- 
ham containing Lady Roydmore had kept pace with 
the ambulance, consequently she had ample time to 
frame and polish the sentences that should make him 
acquainted with the revolution she had worked in his 
life and her own. 

It would be embarrassing to the last degree. Cool 
and collected, not to say callous, as she was, Helen 
felt that it would be embarrassing to explain the mo- 
tives which had influenced her and caused her to take 
the action she had taken on the previous day. She 
resolved to humble herself prettily before the kind 
old man whom she had befooled. She would heap 
up such blame upon her own hea(^ as would disarm 
him, and win his forgiveness. Penitential tears 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


96 

should be freely shed. Fortunately he would be her 
sole audience, she thought. It would be easy to im- 
ply that she had preferred him to Lord Roydmore, 
though honour, pity and overwhelming circumstances 
had compelled her to marry the latter gentleman. 
He was so gentle-natured and generous that he would 
forgive her, she felt sure, and remain her fast friend 
in the future, as he had been in the past. 

Her heart beat a trifle faster as she entered her own 
house, and began to give orders to her servants about 
the preparations to be made for his reception ; but it 
almost stood still when she was told that Miss Wynd- 
ham and Captain Stafford were both waiting for her 
in the drawing-room. 

Here was an unforeseen complication. She knew 
Miss Dorothy far too well not to feel sure that she had 
been amiably garrulous on the subject of her brothers 
engagement. How Harry must be despising her. 
How much more would he despise her when the 
whole truth was told. On the whole, it must be 
conceded to her that she had good nerve to go in 
and face her visitors with such a story as she had 
to tell. 

Captain Stafford was standing leaning up against 
the mantelpiece when she swept into the room. 
There was the shadow of a scowl on his handsome 
face as he listened to Miss Dorothy’s words of greet- 
ing to their hostess. 

“ My dearest Helen, I have just been telling Cap- 
tain Stafford what a happy and fortunate man my 
brother is ” 

“ Neither happy nor fortunate just at present, dear 
IMiss Dorothy,” Helen interrupted. “ He has had an 
accident, hurt his knee ; they are taking him into the 
dining-room. Go to him, I will follow you in a few 
moments.” 

The fond old sister was out of the room and well 
on her way downstairs as Helen turned to Captain 
Stafford and held out her hand. 

“ Harry, shake hands with me. I know I am not 


the honourable jane. 97 

worth your friendship, but I can’t bear to lose it.” 

“So you’ve jilted Lord Roydmere for this other 
poor old fool, have you he said, taking her hand 
reluctantly. Her fingers clasped his warmly and re- 
tained them. He could not help relenting towards 
her a little, and being thrilled by that firm, tender 
grasp. 

“You will hate and despise me, I know you will,” 
she said, musically and mournfully. “ I have no ex- 
cuse excepting the truth for my conduct. Poverty has 
forced me to play a hateful part. I have not jilted 
Lord Roydmore ; I was married to him yesterday. 
Harry, dear Harry, when I lost you I vowed to have 
done with love. In making the marriage I have 
made, I have placed myself beyond the po^ssibility of 
your suspecting that my heart has been fickle to you, 
whatever my conduct may have been.” 

“You are a wonderfully clever woman, Lady 
Roydmore, but I fail to see the point of your con- 
duct ; you could surely have married Lord Roydmore 
without entangling Mr. Wyndham in your net ? ” 

“I had reasons to suppose that Lord Roydmore 
was being influenced against me by his family. I 
smarted under the mortifying dread of being thrown 
over. I was weak, wrong, culpable — I admit all 
that ; but surely you can understand that a woman of 
my temperament would do anything rather than be 
pointed at as the left-off toy of a man old enough to 
be her father. Poor Mr. Wyndham, unhappily for 
himself, made me an offer while the fear of this mor- 
tification was upon me. I had scarcely accepted 
him before Jane Herries came to me with a piteous 
tale of her father’s serious illness and desire to see me. 
He had provided a special licence. He worked upon 
my feelings, urging that he felt he was dying, and 
that it would brighten his last hours to know that I 
was his wife. Oh, can’t you understand it all, Harry, 
and pity me } I only ask for your pity now ; you 
surely will give it — you who so freely gave me much 
more once .? ” 


7 


98 the honourable jane. 

He bent his head and touched her hand lightly 
with his lips. 

“Yes, I do pity you, Helen ; I loved you awfully 
once, and something of the old feeling sticks, I sup- 
pose, for I can’t feel as disgusted with you as I ought, 
considering how abominably you have behaved.'’ 

She looked full into his eyes for a few moments, 
then she said, — 

“You loved me awfully once.? It’s sweet to hear 
you say so for the last time ! " 

“ You’re right there ; it is for the last time. I never 
go shares in anything ; if I can’t have it for my own, 
why, I go without it altogether. Good-bye, Lady 
Roydmore. I suppose you will allow me to call on 
you, and let me try to console myself with your 
pretty step-daughter ” 

“ I can wish my pretty step-daughter no better fate 
than to be your consoler,” she said, a little unsteadily ; 
for she realised that never again would she hear 
words of either passion or sentiment from his lips. 
She also realised that she would never be able quite 
to forget those he had so often spoken to her in the 
past. 

As soon as he was gone, she went down to inquire 
for and explain herself to Mr. Wyndham. She found 
him lying, looking pale and very much exhausted, on 
the sofa, and she was telling herself that she would 
defer her disclosure till another day, when he forced 
her hand by saying, — 

“ Helen, I heard some words spoken at LordRoyd- 
more’s house that have perplexed and distressed me 
painfully. The servants spoke of ‘her ladyship,’ 
and I gathered that they referred to you. Clear up 
this mystery for me — restore my peace of mind and 
confidence in you — if you can. ” 

“If Miss Dorothy will leave us alone for a few 

minutes, I will explain ” she was beginning, 

when he interrupted her to say, — 

“ ‘ Miss ’ Dorothy ! Surely your sister that is to be 
need not be so formally addressed. Dorothy, my 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


99 

dear, let it be as Helen wishes ; leave us alone for a 
little time/' 

“Make him happy again, Helen," Miss Dorothy 
whispered, as she passed out of the room ; and then 
Helen knelt by the side of the sofa, and covered her 
face with her hands. All the neatly-framed and pol- 
ished sentences fled from her mind, and she could 
only stammer out the bald, cruel truth. 

‘ ‘ You will never forgive me ! I weakly let myself 
be persuaded to gratify the whim of a man who be- 
lieved himself to be dying. I married Lord Royd- 
more yesterday. " 

There was a long, long pause, during which Helen 
still kept her face buried in her hands. At length the 
tension became too great — the silence and the sus- 
pense became too unbearable. She looked up, intend- 
ing to add a few words of excuse, and breathe a little 
prayer for pardon. But the sight that met her eyes 
sealed her lips. Mr. Wyndham was crying silently, 
but very bitterly. 

“This is a heavier punishment than I can bear," 
she cried desperately. “Mr. Wyndham, I am not 
worth a regretful thought, much less a tear from you. 
I am selfish, cold " 

“Hush!" He interrupted her self-denunciation 
with a gesture so full of grief and pain that she obeyed 
the gesture with something of the same solemn re- 
spect which she would have accorded to deathbed 
words. “You shall not say cruel and disparaging 
words of the woman I asked to be my wife yester- 
day," he went on. “That woman is as dead to me 
as if she were lying in her grave. Yoti have no part 
in her. Lady Roydmore." 

She was crying as bitterly now as he had been a 
minute before, but in the midst of her contrition and 
confusion she remembered the ring which Miss Dor- 
othy had given her, and removed it from her finger. 

“Give it back to her from me ; I can’t see her ; I 
have borne enough in seeing your contempt for me, 
your grief for the woman you believed me to be." 


lOO the honourable jane , 

“ Keep the ring, you have w'orn it ; Dorothy would 
never look at it again,'" he said quickly ; and then the 
lines of pain grew deeper on his poor, plain old face, 
and Helen hastened to remove herself from his pres- 
ence, on the ground of seeking better attendance for 
him. 

Within an hour, accompanied by his sister, who 
looked little less shattered than himself, Mr. Wynd- 
ham was on his way back to the home at Redhill, 
which he had intended to idealise and beautify into a 
fitting receptacle for one whom be believed to be the 
pearl of womankind. As he went, he firmly intended, 
and Helen thought, that never again in this world 
would their paths cross ; and to her there was a cer- 
tain sense of relief in this fixed idea. As she drove 
back to her husband’s home, she felt that she had 
(though at the expense of a good deal of current feel- 
ing) surmounted the Wyndham difficulty very neatly, 
and she quoted with a keen sense of satisfaction some 
lines which Captain Stafford had written to her in one 
of his moments of cynicism. 

“ — Hand in hand we trod the way 
That was pleasant while it lasted — 

Ah ! so pleasant ! bless the day 

When we met ! 

“Life has stores of many pleasures 
If we take them when we can, 

One perhaps the best of all is, 

For a woman and a man 

To forget!” 

“ Poor old Wyndham ! ” she thought approvingly ; 
“I knew he wouldn’t be vindictive, but how awkward 
it would have been if he had blundered out anything 
about being engaged to me before Jack 1 It was the 
pain kept him dumb, I suppose. On the whole, he 
sprained his knee-cap very opportunely. As it is, I 
can start fresh.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


lOI 


CHAPTER XII. 

A LESSON IN LOVE. 

As Lord Roydmore recovered somewhat rapidly from 
the illness which had at one time seemed so seri- 
ous, his wife withdrew herself more and more from 
that rather dreary domestic round with which he had 
vainly imagined she would be contented. She had 
paid for her whistle, and she would have it. At this 
juncture, Jane was a capital peg on which her step- 
mother could hang up her innumerable excuses for 
making a distinguished onslaught on society, and 
carrying her forces into the wildest fastnesses. 

Several times, when Lord Roydmore had com- 
plained of liver-agueish sensations, fever, chill, gouty 
symptoms and a few other ailments to which he was 
prone, Mrs. Graves had offered to relieve Lady Royd- 
more* of the office of chaperoning Jane. But Jane 
was a strong card, and Helen determined that no 
one should play it but herself. 

It never occurred to the woman to ask herself 
“ why ” she was stimulating the girl's curiosity about, 
and interest in. Captain Stafford. But Helen could no 
more resist doing this than she could leave off breath- 
ing while the life was strong within her. Somewhere, 
away down at the bottom of her heart, she believed 
that there was a little danger to her own peace of 
mind in a renewal of any kind of intercourse with 
“ Harry, ’ as she always called him to herself. But in 
her superficial and surface treatment of the case, she 
affected to think that she might extract a great deal 
of pure, pleasurable, friendly feeling from editing and 
supervising the growth of affectionate relations be- 
tween him and Jane. 

It was the night of the ball at their own house that 


102 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


Lady Roydrnore had an opportunity for the first time 
of putting her theories into practice. Captain Stafford 
had dined with them, and had conveyed the intima- 
tion to her during dinner that he had to rejoin the first 
battalion of his regiment, just home from Burmah, at 
Plymouth. 

“ Where, I hope,” he added, “ we shall stick for a 
time. ” 

Lady Roydrnore threw up her head, and expressed 
general disgust both by the expression of her eyes 
and hands. 

‘ ‘ Why isolate yourself in that way .? Why not 
send in your papers, and live and move and have 
your being unfettered by service bothers .? ” she asked 
impatiently, and he answered laughingly, — 

“ It’s not penal servitude by any means being 
quartered in Plymouth, I assure you ; and I don’t 
send my papers in because I see there’s a chance of 
a row coming off somewhere soon, and I want to be 
in it.” 

“Besides, you wouldn’t be quite the ‘you’ that 
you are if you left the service,” Jane put in enthusi- 
astically. “And how sick you would feel if there 
did come a row and you weren’t in it.” 

“ Is it the red jacket that you pin your faith upon, 
Miss Herries .? Do you think when a man’s out of it 
that he ceases to be a soldier } ” 

“Indeed I don’t, but I think I should like to think 
of you as one of the men who can put it on when 
they please ; ” and as she finished her little say, 
which was surely harmless enough. Lady Roydmore’s 
voice cut in, clear and incisively, — 

“I take you more on trust than these young people 
are inclined to do. Captain Stafford. No mufti can 
conceal the real soldier who has proved himself one. 
My daughter Jane thinks a great deal of the red coat 
still, and she is not critical about the way in which 
medals have been won, so long as she sees them 
worn. ” 

“I don t think your daughter Jane is so indiscrimi- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


103 

nating,” he answered, speaking to Lady Roydmore, 
and looking at Jane ; and in response to that look 
Jane experienced the first little throb of gratitude 
which she had ever been called upon to feel for a man 
who had saved her from an awkward social dilemma. 
To be classed with the commonplace women who 
only care for the red coat had been galling to her. 
To have been rescued from that class by Captain 
Stafford, who knew so much more about it all than 
Lady Roydmore could pretend to do, was the most 
soothing ointment that could possibly have been 
applied to the gall. 

Lady Roydmore was to begin to receive her ball 
guests at ten o'clock. Jane thought the dinner would 
never come to an end, but by half-past nine they had 
scattered themselves — the women to retouch their 
more delicate personal decorations, the men to taste 
the invigorating joys of the cigarette. It was just a 
chance that he might find the pretty unmarried daugh- 
ter of the house giving one last look to the floral 
adornments of the ballroom, but, at any rate. Captain 
Stafford thought that he would try it. Purposely, he 
had come without a buttonhole, feeling sure that 
Helen would have one for him. But now it occurred 
to him that it would be rather nice to get an im- 
promptu one from Jane. 

He had expected to find her, but still his pulses 
beat a throb the faster as he passed through the still 
empty ballroom, and found Miss Herries standing 
a foot or two away from the conservatory entrance, 
in the shadow of some palms. 

“ I go up one in my own estimation. I thought I 
should find you here," he said, stepping up beside 
her, and speaking boldly, as she already was learning 
to love to hear him step and speak. 

‘ ‘ And I thought you would come here ; so sure, 
that — " She paused, cast a rapid glance round the 
rows of plants burdened with heavily-scented flowers, 
then added, “ I came here to choose you a flower for 
your buttonhole ; I saw you had none." 


104 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


“ I came without on purpose, trusting to your gen- 
erosity and sweet taste, Miss Herries, he answered 
mendaciously ; and for answer she plucked out a bit 
of myrtle and jasmine from the artistically-arranged 
stack of these flowers she carried. A little thread of 
silver, drawn cunningly from some embroidery on the 
lace flounce of her frock, bound the little white 
blossoms securely together, and she was fastening 
them into his coat with a pretty air of fastidiousness, 
when the swirl of Helen’s dress and the sound of 
Helen’s voice made the man, not the girl, step back 
like a guilty thing. 

“Your father wishes you to wear your pearl neck- 
lace to-night, Jane. I am surprised not to see it on. 
Lord Roydmore will be more than annoyed to And 
that you have forgotten to wear it, as Florence has 
forgotten to bring up her ruby necklace. Go and get 
it, dear, at once.” 

Lady Roydmore uttered her mandate with a pretty 
air of affectionate, half-playful, maternal authority ; 
but she looked far too young in her sheeny robe of 
gold-coloured silk, draped with chiffon, to be the 
mother of the girl she addressed. The chiffon was 
gathered into loose rosettes round the petticoat and 
train, and in the heart of each rosette lurked a diamond. 
Dimonds encircled her graceful throat and slender 
arms, flashed out from the dusky recesses of her hair, 
and glinted up as buckles from her shoes. 

“ S^he is a glorious creature — a real, ripping beauty,” 
Captain Stafford confessed to himself, as she faced 
him dauntlessly under a strong light, defying him, 
as it seemed, to And her one whit less attractive thhn 
her much younger step-daughter. Her figure was so 
perfectly preserved, her waist so lissom and slim, her 
back so nicely graduated and straight, her bust so 
perfect in its firm, round, richly-voluptuous propor- 
tions, that the girl’s figure, slender and graceful as it 
was, looked poor and meagre beside it. For one 
moment a fierce anger against himself possessed him 
that he had been inert enough to let this woman slip 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


105 

from his grasp. The next instant a higher, purer, in- 
stinct possessed him, and he rejoiced in the power 
that was still his to try, at least, to win the girl whose 
life was an undefiled, spotless, unwritten page still. 
The flowers she had placed in his buttonhole were still 
trembling from her touch. He turned to look at her, 
and saw her shivering with nervousness and fear. 

“Oh, Lady Roydmore,”she was pleading, ''do ask 
papa not to be angry with me. I can’t wear my 

pearls to-night, I have sent them to be I mean 

they are being cleaned, or re-set, or something. I 
shall have them back in a few days. Papa must for- 
give me for not wearing them to-night.” 

“ My dear child, go and explain the matter to your 
father yourself. / dare not undertake to be your 
ambassadress in such a matter as this. Silly child ! 
to have pearls that did not need re-setting re-set just 
now. However, it’s no use my scolding you, dear ; 
go up and tell your tale to papa as prettily as you 
have told it to me, and he will forgive you. ’ 

She put her well-rounded, diamond-enriched arm 
round Jane’s waist as she spoke, and dragged that very 
unwilling young woman to the door. 

“Go, go to papa and make it all right with him, 
and then come back to me, and I’ll ensure you such a 
pleasant evening, my darling child,” Helen whispered 
softly ; but Jane, though she obeyed, did so most un- 
willingly and ungraciously. She knew that the task 
of “making it right with papa” about the pearl neck- 
lace was one she could not hope to accomplish — just 
yet. She also knew that, while she was away on this 
hopeless undertaking, her loving step-mother would 
undo a goodly portion of the spotless web she (Jane) 
had begun to weave about Captain Stafford’s willing 
feet. What wonder that she obeyed the step-maternal 
mandate unwillingly. What wonder that her heart 
beat horribly fast with wounded pride, and some 
softer,, sweeter feeling as she caught a glimpse of 
Captain Stafford’s face in passing out. That face 
which had been bent so tenderly, so almost lovingly 


Io 6 the hoa^o c/e able /a he. 

towards her when her step-mother had so ruthlessly 
interrupted them, wore an expression of stern disap- 
probation now which she was utterly unable to ac- 
count for. She would have been even more wretched 
than she was had she known that he was thinking 
something to the following effect, — 

“Her innocence and child-like frankness are 
assumed ; she’s tarred with the same brush as her 
sister, and her pearls have gone to pay gambling 
debts, probably.” 

Happily for Jane’s current peace of mind, they were 
not dwelling in the “Palace of Truth,” consequently 
she remained unconscious of his unjust suspicion. 

The girl went upstairs sadly enough, but not to 
seek her father, as she had been bidden. She went 
into Mrs. Graves’ dressing-room, and found that lady 
putting some delicate finishing touches to her already 
exquisite complexion. 

“Oh! Flo!” Miss Herries began piteously, “it 
will all come out now ! I knew it would. I’m in an 
awful fright ” 

“ IVhaC must all come out.? You made me jump, so 
that Tve dabbed it on so that one cheek looks like a 
dairymaid’s. I wish you would leave off your play- 
ful, puppy ways, and learn to walk into a room 
quietly ; at least I wish you would do it when I hap- 
pen to be in the room.” 

“ But, Flo, do listen ; Lady Roydmorehas just told 
me I am to wear my pearl necklace.” 

“ Tell Lady Roydmore to mind her own business, 
and don’t you come and worry me about it. I am 
sick of the word necklace. Papa sent for me just now 
— at that woman’s instigation, I believe — and ordered 
me to wear my rubies to-night. I told him they were 
locked up at The Court, and that I wouldn’t entrust 
my private key to any one, so that matter was settled 
very soon. ” 

“ What^zw I to say to papa .? ” Jane asked dejectedly. 

“Say anything that comes into your head, only 
take care that what you say will stand worrying, for 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


107 


Helen won’t let the subject lie down and die a natural 
death if she can help it. Why did you go down so 
early, and risk an encounter with our beloved new 
mamma ? ” 

“ I went down to get a flower from the conserva- 
tory.’' 

“ And to meet Captain Stafford ? I hope he didn’t 
disappoint you Take care, though ; he’s rather 
starched where girls are concerned. If he thinks you 
are running after him — or even crawling towards him 
— he will fly. ” 

“ He will never think that I am doing either ! 
You are unkind, Flo. You have said the very thing 
to make me stiff, and cool, and awkward to a man 
I was really beginning to like.” 

“The stiffness, coolness and awkwardness will 
vanish in the course of the evening, I venture to 
prophesy. Come down now with me ; the room must 
be half full by this time, and Lady Roydmore will 
have no time to make you feel uncomfortable about 
the pearls. Moreover, she will have no inclination 
to do it while you are under my wing.” 

“ How about papa ? ” 

“ He will be so occupied with his own ailments, 
and with watching his precious Helen, that he will 
have no time to notice anything else. Come ! don’t 
look as doleful as if you had lost a lover or your 
beauty. ” 

“I was so happy before Lady Roydmore reminded 
me of the wretched pearls ; now I feel as if I could 
never be happy again,” Jane said mournfully, but her 
sister, instead of according her any sympathy, only 
laughed at her, and ran down the stairs to the ball- 
room, looking far younger and lighter-hearted than 
the Honourable Jane. . 

The room was well filled, and the appearance of 
the daughters of the house was the signal for the 
dancing to commence. To Jane’s agony, her pro- 
gramme was filled in a few minutes, before she had 
even seen Captain Stafford. Her eyes roved in all 


io8 the honourable jane. 

directions in search of him, as she flew round the 
room in the arms of other men. But it was not till 
after the sixth waltz that she caught a glimpse of him 
talking earnestly, as it seemed to her, to a tall, fair, 
stately, golden-haired girl, who in turn was giving 
him the most flatteringly absorbed attention. 

Poor Jane, she had already reached the stage with 
regard to this man of feeling a touch of uneasiness 
whenever he spoke to or looked at another woman, 
unless that woman happened to be very safely old 
and ugly. It pained her dreadfully to see his air of 
devotion to the golden-haired beauty who was a 
stranger to her, yet at the same time she could not 
resist the fascination of watching him. So she sug- 
gested sitting out the remainder of the waltz, and then 
disappointed her partner by refusing to go into any 
one of the shady nooks which had been devised in 
divers places for those who wished to be of “ the 
world forgetting, by the world forgot” order for the 
time. 

“Let us sit down here and watch the dancing,” 
she said, placing herself in a corner from whence she 
commanded a perfect view of Captain Stafford and his 
striking companion. Presently she winced, and an- 
swered her partner at random. The golden-haired 
girl had taken off her glove, and resigned her hand into 
Captain Stafford’s keeping, who was closely inspect- 
her rings. 

“Oh, we may as well dance ; it's no use sitting 
here,” she exclaimed inconsequently ; but before she 
could rise he had looked up and seen the unmistak- 
able expression of the worst pain a woman can endure 
—jealousy — on her face. In a moment he had dropped 
the other girl’s hand and had crossed over to the now 
triumphant Jane. 

“ I have been loolcing for you between each dance ; 
where have you been hiding.^ Give me the next,^ 
won t you .? he began, taking up her programme 
and coolly setting his initials over those of several 
other men. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


109 


The late partner, feeling very much like a rudder- 
less ship, had considerately bowed himself off. Jane 
stole a look at the golden-haired girl, expecting to 
see an air of indignant rivalry about her. To the 
surprise of Miss Herries, Captain Stafford's late com- 
panion was looking as well pleased as before. 

“It's because she feels sure of him ; it must be that, 
or she would hate to be left for me," poor jealous Jane 
thought.- But the next moment the jealousy, possible, 
rivalry, all, everything faded, as he offered her his 
arm and led her away to one of the aforesaid nooks. 

‘ ‘ I wanted to have a yarn with you ; never can 
talk with a hundred people’s eyes on me, can you ? ” 
he asked, as they seated themselves side by side in a 
cosy corner that might have been in Arcadia, so en- 
tirely was it screened off by its floral walls from all 
worldly sights and sounds. 

Jane heaved a happy sigh. ' She was so absolutely 
content that she could find no words to express it. 
Just to sit there by his side, away from every one 
else, feeling his eyes fixed upon her with that look in 
them which tells a sweeter story than any spoken 
words can tell,- was enough for her. Every nerve, 
every fibre in her was thrilled by that look. What a 
lovely place the world was. What had she done to 
deserve such happiness as this, that he should look as 
if he loved her .? 

Her silence gave him time to think, and this first 
thought was that he was going a little too fast. She 
was a darling. “ A fetching darling,” he called her 
to himself, but before he went much farther at this 
mad, delicious gallop he must know a little more about 
the whereabouts of that pearl necklace. Those sweet, 
delicately-carved red lips had spoken words concern- 
ing the absence of that necklace which he felt were not 
true. It pleased him to recall the fact that these lips 
had quivered with painful emotion while uttering the 
little fiction. But that they should have uttered it at 
all put him off, and made him feel that he was going 
too fast. 


1 lO 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


Still, the hour’s influence urged him on. The sub- 
dued strains from afar, the scent of the flowers that 
encircled them as they sat so near together that each 
could hear the other’s heart beat, the knowledge that 
she loved him already (this is a branch of knowledge 
in which man is generally proficient) all combined to 
test his self-restraint to the utmost. He began to 
speak of the strange sense of sympathy which he had 
experienced towards her when they met first, and he 
had given her a flower lesson in Helen Collette’s 
drawing-room. His own utterances urged him on. 
Before he knew what he was doing, he had taken her 
hand, told her how he had loved her from that day, 
drawn her towards him, pressed his lips on her too 
willing ones, and was on the brink of asking her to 
be his wife when there came an interruption which 
restored to him all his powers of self-control, all his 
prudent resolves. A sound of sudden turmoil, cries, 
excited orders given one moment, and rescinded the 
next, the voice of rushing, undisciplined, alarmed 
footsteps, then the tearing aside of the floral screen, 
and the request that “ INIiss Herries would come at 
once; his lordship had had a stroke,” from the terri- 
fied servant who gave the order and explanation all 
in one breath, and after that chaos. 

Lord Roydmore’s case was hopeless from the first, 
but even in the midst of all the sorrowful agony she 
felt at losing her father so suddenly and so shockingly, 
Jane’s young human heart cherished the memory of 
those moments which she had passed with Harry 
Stafford — moments of such passionate sweetness that 
they seemed to belong to a better world than the one 
in which these other people lived. A world of love 
and rapture, in which there would never be regret or 
remorse, disappointment, jealousy or care. A world 
in which it would be all kissing the lips each loved 
the best, and looking into the eyes that each thought 
the sweetest ever seen. A world made up of Harry 
Stafford and herself, in fact — poor, romantic, credu- 
lous, loving-hearted Jane. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


Ill 


CHAPTER I. 

A USEFUL OLD FRIEND. 

By the time Lady Roydmore emerged from the strict 
retirement which she ordained for herself and her 
unmarried step-daughter during the earlier weeks of 
her widowhood, Captain Stafford had gone down to 
join his regiment at Plymouth. This was very grati- 
fying to Helen for many reasons, the chief one being 
that he would, for some time, at least be spared the 
danger of coming under Jane s personal influence. 

The widow, by her late husband’s will, was a tol- 
erably wealthy woman now, and she determined to 
use her wealth for the attainment of every pleasurable 
purpose of her life. One of these purposes might be 
frustrated by the renewel of intercourse between Harry 
Stafford and Jane. 

Helen had accepted the loan of her step-son’s house 
for a couple of months after ceasing to be its mistress, 
and naturally Jane had remained with her during the 
time. But as soon as the new Lord Roydmore had 
established himself at Roydmore, the widow resolved 
to alter the existing order of things, and rid herself of 
the responsibility of being the guardian of a girl who 
was not her own child. 

“I think, till Roydmore marries, you should be at 
the head of his household, Jane. Just think what a 
charming position you would have. You would be 
a little queen in the county, and when you came up 
to town you would have ever so much better a time 
with a nice, go-ahead fellow like Jack than you can 
ever have with an old and unimportant woman like 
me.” 

Jane knew that there must be much lurking behind 


II2 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


this newly-born humility of her versatile step-mother ; 
but what it was composed of puzzled her. It could 
not be that Lady Roydmore feared that her step-daugh- 
ter might become a drain on her purse, for her father 
had secured Jane's independence by leaving her six 
hundred a year. Nor could it be that the obligation 
of taking her into the world appalled Lady Roydmore, 
who was never so happy as when playing her varied 
parts before as much of the world as could see her. 
For her own part, Jane would have liked to remain 
with Helen, who was always kind and lively and 
sympathetic. In Helen’s house, too, the girl thought 
she would surely have opportunities of seeing Captain 
Stafford again before long ; and to see Captain Staf- 
ford again was now the one great craving desire of 
her life. Jane was very fond of her brother, but the 
prospect of holding the exalted position of mistress of 
his house on an uncertain tenure, for probably a brief 
time, had no charms for her. Of course, Jack would 
marry soon. It was not to be supposed for a moment 
that a young, good-looking fellow, with an old title 
and moderately fair rent-roll, would be allowed to 
retain his liberty long in a set abounding with far- 
sighted mothers and dutiful daughters, well disposed 
to see things appertaining to their future with their 
parents'* eyes. No ; Roydmore was a dear brother, 
but Jane made up her mind that she would not hamper 
him by casting the care of herself upon him. So it 
was settled that for a time, at least, she should go 
down to The Court and make her sister's house her 
home, an arrangement that fell in agreeably with 
Florence’s views, and she felt that Jane’s income, 
judiciously handled, might be very serviceable to her 
(Mrs. Graves) in unforeseen emergencies. 

“I don’t understand, though, what Lady Royd- 
more’s motive can be for getting rid of you so soon. 
She has one, of course ; she’s a woman who never 
does anything without a motive, and it’s generally a 
bad one. Decency forbids her marrying for a few 
months, at least, and during those few months I 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


should have thought she would have been glad to 
take you in and spend your money for you. However, 
don’t think I am anything but pleased at the pros- 
pect of your coming to me ; 1 can always make you 
the excuse to Geof for going anywhere and every- 
where, if he is inclined to grumble. One never knows 
when or at what a husband is going to grumble, so 
it’s as well to be prepared.” 

Florence said this after it had been settled that Jane 
was to go down to The Court in a few days as a per- 
manent guest. There was no fear now, Mrs. Graves 
thought, of the girl taking alarm at the sentiments 
expressed, and backing out of the agreement. Jane, 
however, protested forcibly. 

“ I won’t be used as a blind, or as a birch-rod to 
punish Geof in any way. He is much too good to 
you, Flo, and if you want to take me anywhere Geof 
does not want you to go, I shall not go. You shall 
not make me the excuse for displeasing Geof.” 

“ My deaf child, you will soon find that you will 
get a great deal more fun out of life by siding with 
me than by siding with Geof. Captain Salusbury is 
going to bring the Adonis of his regiment down to 
Penarth hall at Christmas. We shall be such a jolly 
quartette, for the Adonis is not a mere beauty-man, 
but is very clever and amusing, Bob Salusbury says.” 

‘'Captain Salusbury is the man Geof likes the least 
of all your Penarth set, isn’t he ? ” 

Florence shrugged her shapely shoulders. 

‘ ‘ If you’re ever fortunate enough to land Captain 
Stafford — or any other man — in your little net, Jane, 
you will speedily discover that husbands like least 
the men who have the good taste to like their wives 
best. Bob Salusbury happens to have found a kindred 
spirit in me ” 

“A kindred fiddlestick,” Jane interrupted impa- 
tiently. “Why do you call him Bob as if he were 
your brother, or you’d known him all your life ? That 
must annoy Geof. I didn’t like what I saw of Cap- 
tain Salusbury at that awful ball of ours ” 

8 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


I14 

“ Then your taste is more excruciatingly bad than 
ever I thought it,” Florence put in carelessly. “His 
looks are just perfect — distinguished, fine, splendid 
form. Find a fault with his personal appearance or 
manner if you can — and your judgment can only be 
founded on his looks and manner, for I know he 
didn’t speak to you.” 

As her sister spoke, Janes conscience smote her. 
In just such words as Florence was using about 
Captain Salusbury would she (Jane) have described 
Captain Stafford — if she dared. Perhaps, after all, 
there was no harm in the married woman’s rhapsodis- 
ing in this way. It was only that she had the courage 
of her opinions. It came into the girl's mind that if 
she had been married herself before she met Harry 
Stafford, she would have felt it to be a cruel and puer- 
ile exercise of authority on her imaginary husband’s 
part had he in any way tabooed, condemned or stul- 
tified their intimacy. Ah ! but then Harry Staftbrd 
was as different and superior to Captain Salusbury as 
— well, as the man a woman loves always is to every 
other man in the world. 

She made no answer to her sister’s remarks. Her 
thoughts went wandering back to that night of nights, 
when he had drawn her close to him, whispered that 
he loved her, and kissed her as she had never been 
kissed before, and “never would be again, unless it 
were by him,” she vowed. How intensely happy 
she had been for those few blissful moments. How 
grateful she had felt for having been born, and for 
having been born pretty. How she had longed to 
open her heart freely to him, and tell him that, in 
return for every atom of love which he gave her, she 
gave him a hundred-fold in return ! How difficult it 
had been to refrain from clinging to him, and calling 
him her own, her love ! When she had been sum- 
moned to her dying father, how dreadful it had been 
to feel in the middle of her sorrow that her sorrow 
would be lightened if she could have had him with her 
every hour, every minute ! And with what a dull thud 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


”5 

of disappointment had her poor, trusting little heart 
gone down when she had heard that he had gone 
away to Plymouth without giving her another word, 
or even sending her one little line ! 

Jane had never frittered her feelings away by suf- 
fering them to become engaged on the slight pro- 
vocation of every man’s passing attention, as the 
manner of some is. She had thought and dreamt 
of love and a possible lover as every girl does, but 
she had never indulged in the fancy of having found 
one until she met Captain Stafford. Then without an 
effort — she admitted honestly to herself that it was 
without an effort — he had conquered her, won her to 
him so closely that to sever her from him would be 
to wound her to death. 

For days, for weeks, for months she went on nurs- 
ing the happy hope that he would come to her soon. 
And when time went on in its remorselessly indif- 
ferent way, and still he came not, she stimulated her 
fainting heart with the thought that “ of course he 
couldn’t come, as he didn’t know her address.” A 
dozen times she was on the brink of sending it to 
him, but the delicate instincts of her class and sex 
saved her from committing this act of madness. 

She was in frequent correspondence with Lady 
Roydmore for the first two months of her residence 
at the Court. Helen was not at all above being 
curious as to the daily doings, the domestic bicker- 
ings and the social round of the Graves’. Jane was 
not a gossip-monger, still, in writing to a woman who 
always wrote affectionately and (apparently) con- 
fidentially to her, the girl naturally wrote freely of 
what was going on around her. She never censured 
Florence, but it leaked out in her letters sometimes 
that Florence was both indiscreet and extravagant, 
and that Geoffrey was not quite as happy as she 
would like to see him. It also leaked out that she 
herself was in a chronic state of impecuniosity, though 
her personal expenses were very small. From all of 
which Lady Roydmore gathered that The Court was 


1 1 6 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

not a happy home for Jane. Nevertheless, Helen 
hardened what she had of heart, and abstained from 
opening her arms and her doors to her dead husband s 
daughter. 

At the end of two months there came a break in the 
correspondence. Two or three of Jane’s letters 
remained unanswered, and even an inquiring telegram 
brought forth no reply. The reason of this was that 
Lady Roydmore had no desire to excite Jane’s sus- 
picions until these, however strongly aroused, would 
be powerless to interfere with her. 

The fact was, that from the day of her release from 
the bondage of matrimony, Helen had been filled 
with a hungrily, passionate desire to re-capture Harry 
Stafford. She could afford to let herself love him now, 
and she did it with all the long pent-up forces of her 
nature. She knew that she was considerably his 
senior, she knew that men are not wont to be faithful 
to charms that are very fully matured. But what 
matter ! “A woman is as old as she looks,” she re- 
minded herself, and there were days when Helen did 
not look a week more than five-and-twenty. As for 
the possible faithlessness, she felt that she could bear 
it from him if only she were his wife. He was too 
much of a gentleman to desert or openly neglect the 
woman to whom he should give his name, and for 
the rest, “I’d love him into loving me if I had the 
opportunity,” she thought. 

She knew that it would be waste of time to write 
to him. Her letter would conjure up no vision of 
that dangerous beauty of hers which he had once 
found so irresistible. It would, in all probability, 
affect him so little that he would neglect to answer it. 
IMoreover, in her present circumstances she could not 
with good taste write him one of those smart, semiscan- 
dalous effusions which most men found so amusing, and 
for which she was rather famous. On the other hand, 
she could not infuse anything like a touch of sentiment 
into her letter without alarming him. No ; it was her 
personal influence, her personal beauty which she 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


I17 

must bring to bear upon him, until, before he knew 
what he was about, he should succumb to it. 

It was difficult to know what to do in order to 
effect this. If she went down to Plymouth on pre- 
tence of wishing for sea air and seeing the country 
round, he would see through the shallow pretence, 
and laugh at her openly. She must have an object 
which she could avow, and which he might be per- 
suaded to believe. 

For a day or two she racked her mind in the vain 
endevour to invent such an object. At the end of 
that time a happy effort of memory brought to her 
mind the remembrance of the existence of an old 
school friend who had some years ago married a 
doctor and gone down to live in Devonshire. She 
remembered, too, that the place of this doctor’s abode 
was — blessed coincidence ! — in a village near Ply- 
mouth. 

How to get hold of Mrs. Abbot’s address, that was 
the next question. It must have been at least ten 
years since she had heard from or seen “poor old 
Lou,” as she now thought of the long-lost-sight-of one 
rather affectionately. But in “poor old Lou’s ” maiden 
days, Helen had been in the habit of going and spend- 
ing days, with which she had nothing better to do, 
with Lou and her mother, Mrs. Baron, out at the lat- 
ter’s little cottage of gentility, in a very secluded part 
of the oldest portion of Hampstead. She recalled the 
locality easily. It was to the left of the High Street, 
going Hampstead Heathwards, and it had some 
local traditional importance, as having at one time 
been inhabited by Keats, and haunted by the living 
forms of Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and others of that im- 
mortal band. The old lady had been intensely proud 
of these traditions, though she had never read a line 
written by these aforesaid poets in her life. If she 
was alive still, Lady Roydmore felt confident that she 
would find Mrs. Baron still knitting in the shady par- 
lour, and still looking at the trees — whose boughs near- 
ly swept the shrub-bespangled lawn — under whose 


1 1 8 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

shade Keats, and Shelley, and Leigh Hunt had sat 
and talked of politics, religion and morality in a way 
that would have made Mrs. Baron’s hair stand on end 
could she hade heard them. 

Fortune favours those who strongly favour them- 
selves, Mrs. Baron was alive and at home, and most 
gratefully glad to give her daughter’s address to Lady 
Roydmore. It was called “ Plym Tor,” though the 
Plym was a rather far cry from it, and there was not 
the slightest semblance of a “ tor ” anywhere near ; 
and the village in which it was situated was within 
half-a-dozen miles of Plymouth. 

That same day, a box containing suitable presents 
for Mrs. Abbot’s four children, and an affectionately 
reminding letter for herself, was despatched to the 
mistress of Plym Tor. Within a week Helen found 
herself being earnestly entreated by her old friend to 
come down and try what the fresh air and the quiet of 
the country would do for the “lowered tone” from 
which she declared herself to be suffering. Lady 
Roydmore could always command fresh air without 
taking an intolerably long railway journey in search 
of it, and there were few things she hated more on 
earth than the quiet of the country. Nevertheless, she 
went down to Plym Tor with a grateful and flatter- 
ing readiness that struck Mrs. Abbot as being remark- 
ably sweet in one so popular, smart beautiful and 
sought after as her old friend Lady Roydmore. 


CHAPTER II. 

DOLLY. 

In common with the beautiful city of Prague, the 
latitude and longitude of the village in which Lady 
Roydmore’s conveniently-remembered friend dwelt 
is rather uncertain and vague. At least, a hazy in- 
distinctness shall be preserved as to its exact locality. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


II9 

It is easy to do this, for the salient features of the 
majority of villages in that lovely, lotus-eating 
western land closely resemble one another. They 
are invariably well wooded and watered. There is 
generally to be found within their borders two or 
three old manorial dwelling-places, and a fine view 
of the Dartmoor hills. Their churches, in a few 
instances are touchingly picturesque, by reason of 
the unopposed attacks of Time. But in the majority 
of cases they are restored to more than their original 
beauty, and are admirably ordered and well kept. 
As a rule, they are at an inconvenient distance from a 
railway station, but are in convenient proximity to a 
trout-stream ; and it may be added to their credit 
that the cream and butter which they supply is nearly 
equal to that to be procured at Tucker’s in the 
Strand. 

It was at that rather dour hour six on a November 
evening when Helen arrived at Plym Tor. She had 
disliked the drive from the three-mile distant railway 
station extremely. Her old friend had met her with 
many warm manifestations of delight, but with a 
dog-cart whose horribly high step caused Helen’s 
exquisitely laced skirts to split as she stepped into 
it. 

“ Why didn’t you tell me to come down in elastic, 
if this is the sort of thing I have to do ? ” she asked, 
when, after having landed herself safely on the seat, 
and been rapturously welcomed by Mrs. Abbot, she 
recovered her breath. 

“Oh, you’ll get used to the way of it in time — 
long before you leave us, I hope, Helen,” Mrs. Abbot 
responded cheerfully. “You see, this dog-cart is the 
only thing Dolly and I can command as our very 
own. IVIy husband wants the brougham for night- 
work, and oh, my dear Helen, if you knew what 
‘ night-work ’ in a country district means for a doctor, 
you’d pity me.” 

“ You look very jolly,” Helen said encouragingly ; 
“ I expected to find you — well, different to what you 


120 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


are. Dear old Lou ! after all these years of non- 
intercourse, how delicious it is to meet and find you 
so very much the same.'’ 

“ But you’re not the same, Helen,” the lady who 
was driving the dog-cart said quickly, casting a 
keen, inspecting glance over her friend ; “you were 
a wonderfully prett)^ girl, but now you are a much 
more beautiful woman. What is it } what have you 
done to yourself .? ” 

“Lived and learnt I ” said Helen tersely. 

“ The lesson seems to have been a pleasant one,” 
Mrs. Abbot answered cheerfully. “Now, here we 
are,” and as she spoke she turned her steady-going 
old cob into the short carriage-drive which cut 
through an extremely Verdant garden to the entrance 
door of Plym Tor. 

As they pulled up and she rang at the bell (Mrs. 
Abbot dispensed with the services of groom or page), 
there arose sounds from within that made Helen wish 
that she were not quite so infatuated with Captain 
Stafford as ever to have come to Plym Tor. Yell 
upon yell was borne through the unopened door to 
their afflicted ears, yells that deadened the groom’s 
attempt to explain something which it was necessary 
that he should explain to his mistress ; yells that 
made every unsuspected grey hair in Helen’s head 
turn with sorrow in its grave ; yells that curdled the 
blood in the veins of an amiable cat who was prowl- 
ing round; yells that in their savagely wild and 
penetrating force ought to have proceeded from an 
infuriated band of wild Indians, but that did actually 
come from a tawny dachshund possessed of the 
sweetest temper and the softest brown eyes that ever 
endeared a dog to his family. 

“ It’s only Fritz, don’t mind him ; he is so glad to 
see us, dear thing ! ” Mrs. Abbot explained, as the 
dog bundled down the porch steps, and hurled 
himself as affectionately upon Helen as if she had 
been a friend of his youth. “And this is my 
husband, Torn Abbot,” Mrs. Abbot screamed out 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


I2I 


trying to drown the dachshund’s yells of welcome 
while she went through the necessary form of intro- 
duction between Lady Roydmore and a tall, kindly, 
jolly-looking man who came forward at the moment 
You must call him Tom ; all my friends call him 
Tom. Oh, do stop that dog, some one ! get out, you 
darling ! Dolly ! Where is Dolly ? Come here, 
Dolly, and let me introduce you to Lady Royd- 
more. ” 

“ Here I am, Aunt Lou,” a voice replied, in what 
struck Helen as being an affectedly low and gentle 
tone, and at the same moment a slim girl of middle 
height came from a brilliantly fire-lighted room, and 
stood quietly waiting for the proffered introduction. 

“This is Tom’s niece, Dolly Abbot. Dolly, I hope 
you have seen that the fire is burning well in Lady 
Roydmore’s room — it has come over so terribly damp 
and cold ; and have you ordered tea .? ” 

“I suppose the servants have seen to Lady Royd- 
more’s fire ; and as we always have tea at five, there 
was no need to order it specially to-night.” 

The girl’s manner, looks and tone were all so in- 
tensely supercilious, that Helen conceived an aver- 
sion to her on the spot, an aversion that was destined 
to deepen considerably before she and Dolly Abbot 
had done with one another. 

By-and-by, when the two old friends were having 
a cheering cup and confidential chat in Lady Royd- 
more’s bedroom, the latter suddenly interrupted the 
flow of reminiscences to say, — 

“ By the way, Lou, what a singularly aggressive 
and ‘ haughty milliner ’ manner your niece has. Am 
I the first stranger who has ever loomed upon her 
barbaric horizon, that she treated me to such a dis- 
play of mingled savagery and sulks } ” 

“ She’s rather a queer girl,” Mrs. Abbot conceded, 
with a laugh, “but not at all the unsophisticated 
country girl you take her to be. Her father was a 
paymaster in the Navy, and since his death, twelve 
years ago, Dolly and her mother have lived in Ply- 


122 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


mouth till a year ago, when Mrs. Abbot died, and 
Dolly came to live with her uncle and me. Her 
worst fault is her vanity, and her greatest weakness 
is a frantic desire to marry some one — any one who 
will take her. Young as she is, she is like the Three 
Old Maids of Lee in her requirements in a husband — 

‘ he need not a poet or handsome be, he need not 
woo on his bended knee.’ If he’ll only take her away 
from — here. You can't wonder at it, poor girl ; she 
has neither fortune nor the brains to support herself. 
It's natural that she should long to fulfil woman’s 
mission — marry, and have a home of her own. ” 

“Her manner is likely to enrapture men,” Helen 
said drily. 

“ Her manner is quite different to men, that’s the 
silly part of it,” Mrs. Abbot explained eagerly. “She 
is quite a different girl when men are by.” 

“That’s a pleasing habit many girls acquire who 
are in a second-rate swim in a garrison town,” Lady 
Roydmore said scornfully ; and good-natured Mrs. 
Abbot was silent, under the painful conviction that 
she had, in her endeavour to apologise for and excuse 
her husband’s niece, put the latter in a worse light 
even than that in which Helen had been disposed to 
regard her at first. 

Presently, as the silence grew oppressive, Mrs. 
Abbot rose from the low chair by the cheerfully 
crackling fire with the words, — 

“'We dine at seven, dear. I hope you won’t find 
this first evening dull. I know how different your 
life is to mine, I am so afraid of your finding this 
monotonous. I thought of asking one or two men 
from Plymouth to come and dine with us ; but then, 
again, I hardly knew ” 

Lady Roydmore interrupted with a little laugh, and 
the words, — 

“My dear Lou, please don’t go into retreat on my 
account. My husband has been dead five months, 
surely I may dine in the society of one or two men 
without being considered heartless by the most local 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


123 

of Mrs. Grundys. Don’t alter your usual routine for 
me ; if I thought you were going to do that, I would 
be off to-morrow. ” 

“What a relief to hear you say that, Helen. We 
are not by any means gay people — to you we shall 
appear to be steeped in dulness, — but still we manage 
to go to a good many things in Plymouth, concerts, 
and the theatre, and at-homes, and — oh, well, most 
things that are going on.” 

Neither concerts, country theatres nor at-homes, 
where she would not meet one of her own set, 
appealed to the holiday side of Helen’s nature. At 
present she was on the war-path, and was longing to 
find out what the martial blood in the adjacent garri- 
son town was doing in the way of mixing with the 
civilian social fluid. 

“What regiments are in Plymouth now?” she 
asked languidly. 

“ I think the ‘ Lincoln Greens ’ are there, and the 
^Fighting — th,’ and the Marines; the Marines are 
always with us, you know,” Mrs. Abbot explained, 
with the way of one who was not at all sure of the 
ground upon which she stood. - 

To the “Lincoln Greens” and the Marines Helen 
was profoundly indifferent. Those royal and gallant 
corps might have been at the bottom of the ocean or 
in the wilds of Siberia for all she cared. But her 
heart kindled, her eyes deepened and her face flushed 
into fresher youth and beauty at the sound of the 
“Fighting — th. ” That was his regiment. Ah! the 
mere mention of it made her feel that she was near- 
ing him again. 

“Do you know any of the men in any of those 
regiments ? ” . 

Carelessly as the question was asked, it struck Mrs. 
Abbot that Helen was more in earnest about it than 
she had been about anything since she entered Plym 
Tor. 

“ Several of the Marines ; none of the others. 
Dolly can tell you more about them than I can. She 


124 


TflE HONOURABLE JANE. 


has been staying in Plymouth, and has met some of 
them several times.” 

“ I don’t fancy I should find any information Miss 
Abbot could give me very interesting. I know a 
man in the — th. Now, Lou, I shall spoil your dinner 
if you keep me from dressing any longer. By the 
way, have you an evening post out from here.? ’ 

“ Not later than six, but I’m afraid it’s long past 
that hour now. Stay, Helen, write it at once if you 
want to send a letter, and I’ll give it to a girl who has 
been here sewing for me, and who goes back to Ply- 
mouth by the 8. 50 train. She can post it for you. ” 

Accordingly, the letter was written and conveyed to 
the sewing-girl. Miss, Dolly Abbot happened to be 
inspecting the sewing when the letter was brought in. 
Curiosity, and the desire to obtain all sorts of infor- 
mation in indirect ways, were well-delevoped char- 
acteristics of hers. As soon as her aunt left the room, 
Dolly picked up the letter and read the address. ‘ ‘ Oh ! 
she knows him, does she ! ” the girl thought, with a 
slight accession of colour and a sparkle in her eyes 
that was not born of mirth or any pleasurable 
emotion; “she knows him, does she.? Well! she 
shall hear that I know him too before we finish 
dinner. ” 

Dolly Abbot had come out of her room considering 
her toilet complete for the evening. She now went 
back to her dressing-table, and took out from one of 
its drawers a little bunch of carefully pressed sham- 
rock. This she pinned into the front of the pale blue 
silk blouse she was wearing. It would be easy to 
turn the conversation on to flowers and foliage. Her 
uncle always noticed what she wore. The shamrock 
would be sure to attract his attention, and when he 
asked her where she got it, she would be able to let 
fly an arrow well into the midst of Lady Roydmore’s 
“overbearing pride and vanity,” Dolly told herself. 

The mere fact of having written to tell Captain 
Stafford that she was here had put Helen in the hap- 
piest spirits. She had no fear of getting the slightest 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


125 


repulse. He would naturally be so delighted at the 
prospect of meeting one of his old set in these wilds, 
that, even if no softer feeling prompted him, he would 
be sure to come out and see her at once. And if it 
didn’t rain, what opportunities she would have of 
long strolls with him alone through the lovely 
autumnal woods and by the winding river. Her 
satisfaction at this prospect made her beaming and 
brilliant. She always talked amusingly when she 
had an appreciative audience, and had something ex- 
citing to look forward to. This night she excelled 
herself, interested her host, and made her hostess feel 
quite proud of her. Only Dolly sat silent and unsmil- 
ing, and for silent, unsmiling Dolly, Lady Roydmore 
did not care one bit. 

But during a pause. Dr Abbot, as Dolly had foreseen 
he would, caught sight of the sprig of shamrock and 
instantly asked, — 

“ Hallo, Dolly ! where did you get your shamrock .? 
I didn’t know we had any growing about here.” 

‘ 'It didn’t grow about here. Uncle Tom. Captain 
Stafford gave it to me one day when we were having 
tea in his quarters. He is going to try and get me a 
four-leaved one, so that I may get everything I wish. ” 

For one instant, before she could control their ex- 
pression, Helen’s lovely eyes met those of Miss Dolly 
Abbot, and the latter knew the beautiful, fashionable 
woman, who seemed to think she could carry every- 
thing before her, was honouring her ( Dolly) with a 
very hearty hatred, and a very angry suspicion. But 
Dolly looked quite placid and undisturbed, though 
she was thinking triumphantly, “So far, / have 
scored ! ” 


126 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


CHAPTER III. 

CAPTAIN STAFFORD ON DUTY. 

As is the case with the village in which Plym Tor is 
situated, so it shall be with the barracks in which the 
Forty-blankth were quartered. To the best of the 
knowledge and belief of the chronicler of the histories 
of the people who figure in these pages, the model 
from whom Captain Stafford is very faultily drawn 
has never been in Plymouth in his life. Still, it is an 
unfortunate fact, and one with which all writers of 
fiction have to contend, that if real localities, barracks, 
or any other places are mentioned by name, discern- 
ing readers insist upon it that the characters which 
play their parts on these respective pages must really 
be drawn from the living people who are there, or 
who have been there, or who might have been there 
if something else hadn’t happened, or who may be 
there in the future. Accordingly, it shall only be 
said that Captain Stafford’s quarters were in extremely 
accessible and agreeable barracks, and that for un- 
married quarters they were very superior indeed, for 
the reason that he was Field-Adjutant. 

For some reason or other, Helen’s letter, which 
should have reached him by the earliest morning post, 
was not delivered till the mid-day, and by that time 
he, having been on duty since six in the morning, 
had made arrangements for spending the afternoon. 

It struck him as he opened the letter that there was 
a certain crinkled and muddled look about the adhe- 
sive part of it. But his own servants being above 
suspicion, he thought probably a shower had come 
on after the postman had taken it out of the bag, and 
had damped and sullied it. The next moment he was 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


127 

reading the first words Helen had addressed to him 
since the night of the ball when Jane had so nearly 
won him. Knowing that nothing bores a man more 
than having the cross laid upon him of wading through 
a long letter, Lady Roydmore wisely made hers brief. 

“ My DEAR Harry, — I am staying here with an old 
school friend. I find you are still in Plymouth. Come 
and see me if you can. To-day I am at home. I 
can hardly answer for my movements after to-day. — 
Yours very truly, 

Helen Roydmore.” 

That was all ! Not a touch of sentiment, not an 
attempt to trade upon old times and burnt-out feel- 
ings. He almost stamped in his impatient vexation 
as he remembered that he could not get out to see her 
that day, in consequence of those other engagements 
he had made. Going to see Helen — for a certainty — 
meant hearing of Jane Herries again, and in spite of 
much that we know, and a great deal more that we 
do not know, he did long to hear of the girl whom he 
had held in his arms, and whose lips he had pressed 
for one beautiful minute. 

“ Td chuck it if I dared,” he said to himself, speak- 
ing of his afternoon’s engagement, ‘ ‘ but women are 
so infernally selfish and unreasonable ! ” From which 
it may be inferred that there was a lady in the after- 
noon case. 

He grumbled to himself for half an hour over his 
inability to follow his inclination and “chuck his 
engagement,” but in the end he sent off a telegram 
to Lady Roydmore. 

“On duty to-day — will call to-morrow,” was the 
message. Then a handsome pair of chesnut cobs 
came round in a four-wheeled dog-cart, and he soon 
forgot his temporary annoyance in the pleasure of 
sending two of the smartest steppers in Plymouth 
through Plymouth’s always overcrowded and fre- 
quently impassable streets. 


128 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


He pulled up at the entrance to “ The Royal/' and 
going into the public drawing-room, was met by the 
same golden-haired girl who had made Jane jealous 
at the ball. There was nothing lover-like in their 
greeting, though ; on the contrary, there was some- 
thing that savoured of the family jar in the way in 
which she greeted him. 

“You re more than tiresome, Harry; you have 
kept me waiting ten minutes. I am so glad I’m go- 
ing away to-morrow — what a heaven Malta will seem 
after this damp hole. I shall tell Dick you haven’t 
been half the attentive brother he promised you should 
be.” • 

“My dear girl, if you had been my own wife in- 
stead of my brother’s, I couldn’t have given you more 
time than I have. I have given every moment I 
could get from those cursed barracks to you, and now 
you row me for not having done more.” 

“I won’t row you a bit more, Harry dear.” She 
was the sweet smiling sister-in-law again in a minute. 
“I want you to drive me out to see Dolly Abbot, 
will you ? ” 

“I don’t know the way.” 

“ I do ; I used to go there when I was at school in 
Plymouth. Poor Dolly ; as I’m off to morrow, I 
must go and say good-bye to her. ” 

Mrs. Dick Stafford omitted to say that she had re- 
ceived a telegram from Dolly, which the girl had got 
up at six, and walked three miles to deliver, saying, — 

“Get Captain Stafford to drive you here — promise 
me — say you can’t stop five minutes — take me back 
for night. ” 

So, in unconsciousness of the difficulties that would 
presently environ him. Captain Stafford drove as di- 
rected by his sister, away to see Dolly Abbot. 

Meanwhile, Dolly was gloating over the probable 
success of her plan of making Lady Roydmore bite 
the dust. She had always looked upon it as the one 
smile fortune had bestowed upon her, that a girl with 
whom she had been at school in Plymouth should 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


129 

have come back as a young married woman, with a 
handsome brother-in-law in a regiment which hap- 
pened to be quartered there at the time. Lily Stafford 
had always been kind in a half-lazy, half-patronising 
way to little ‘ ‘ Dolly Abbot,” whom she (Lily) neverthe- 
less regarded as ‘ ‘ sly, ” never reckoning that Dolly was 
clever enough to twist her (Mrs. Dick Stafford) round 
her fingers when she chose, and that she did choose 
to do so very often. 

“She has such a dull life, poor child,” the kind 
young matron would say to her brother-in-law ; “just 
between ourselves, Harry, I don’t think that aunt of 
hers treats her a bit too well. Poor Dolly never com- 
plains, but I can see by the way she clings to me, 
and dreads going home, that her home is anything 
but a happy one. She’s as grateful as a child to 
you for having taken her for two or three drives, and 
for asking her to tea with me in your quarters. ” 

“I never knew children were grateful ; they take 
all they can get, want more, and blackguard you if 
you don’t give it to them.” 

“Now, Dolly’s not that type of child at all. She 
almost worships you for having given her so much 
pleasure.” From which remark of Mrs. Dick Staf- 
ford’s, it may be gathered that she was too loyal to 
implant her own suspicions of Dolly being sly in her 
brother-in-law’s breast. The fact is, she thought, 
“ I like having her with me while I’m here, and she 
never could be dangerous to Harry, so why need I 
bother about her little feigned innocencies and guile- 
lessness. She is sly ! — but she can’t deceive me, 
and it won’t hurt him if she does make eyes at him 
whenever my back is turned. ” 


Two or three times on their way out to the Abbots’, 
Harry Stafford was on the point of telling his sister 
that his old friend Lady Roydmore was staying in 
the neighbourhood. Somehow or other, though, he 
did not do it. The subject never came up naturally, 
9 


130 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


or if it came up naturally, it was nipped just before 
it blossomed into flower by the necessity of giving 
all his attention to the chestnuts, who disliked narrow 
precipitous lanes, and objected to being backed half- 
a-mile downhill in order to let a clay cart, that rumbled 
like thunder, pass. Driving and riding were fine arts 
which Harry Stafford had cultivated to the highest 
possible degree — to such a degree that the horses he 
rode and drove became at once prouder of themselves 
and more alive to their responsibilities as part of the 
turnout, than they ever were in the hands of a lesser 
man. The chestnuts he was handling now were 
typical of unconquerable fiery force and untameable 
strength. Yet he conquered and tamed them with a 
hand that was light as a woman’s, and that manipu- 
lated the reins with a woman s dainty grace. 

“I wish you rode, Lily,” he was saying to his 
sister, as they drove through the little street of the 
village where the Abbots lived. ‘HVe got hold of a 
lovely little filly — a daughter of ' Blue Ruin’s ’ — who 
would carry a woman who could tackle her wonder- 
fully cleverly. Why don’t you ride ? ” 

“Because I can’t, I suppose,” she replied good- 
temperedly. 

“But you ought to; it’s one of the first duties of 
women ” 

“Can Miss Herries ride.?” she interrupted laugh- 
ingly ; “ don’t pretend to look as if you thought me 
mad, Harry. I wasn’t quite blind that night at their 
ball when the poor old man died. I shall never forget 
that girl’s look of anguish while you were looking at 
that ring Dick sent me ; and her look of triumphant 
happiness when you left me for her was quite too 
pretty. Poor dear, she didn’t know who I was, you 
see. ” 

“She’s an awfully nice girl, and she’ll make a rip- 
ping good wife, whoever gets her,” he said seriously. 

“So she will, Harry; and I hope you’ll get her. 
Oh, see ! here is Dolly Abbot ; do pull up. ” 

There, indeed, was Miss Dolly Abbot, demurely 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 131 

walking along the village street with letters in her 
hand to post. Her greeting of them was a master- 
piece of surprised gratification. 

‘‘ How could Captain Stafford have brought his 
lovely^ horses all that way, along those dreadful 
roads,” she was beginning, when ]\Irs. Stafford cut in 
ruthlessly, — 

“Jump up behind, Dolly, there^s lots of room. I’m 
off to-morrow, you know ; I m come to say good- 
bye.” 

“Oh, Lily! when you go there will be nothing 
left worth living for.” 

“Try if I can't fill the vacuum,” Stafford said 
lightly, turning, and to his surprise— a little to his 
dismay — Dolly’s cheeks flushed like pink roses. 

“1 don’t suppose I shall ever ^^Q.you again. Cap- 
tain Stafford ; when Lily is gone, my days in Ply- 
mouth are numbered, and I’m not worth coming so 
far too see.” 

“You silly child,” said Lily impatiently, “don’t 
talk as if* you were an imprisoned maiden, and Harry 
a royal prince who is too high and mighty to be 
approached.” 

Dolly’s only answer was a deep resigned sigh, and 
as she brought this sigh to a conclusion they swept 
into the little carriage drive of Plym Tor. 

Strolling up and down outside the drawing-room 
windows were Mrs. Abbot and Lady Roydmore. 
They both turned as they heard the carriage wheels. 
They were close to him as Captain Stafford pulled up 
his horses smartly, but for a moment he did not 
recognise Helen ; the deep mourning disguised her 
in a measure. The next instant her cry of, “ Harry, 
is it possible I ” made his most vivid recollection of 
her come back with a bound, and as he sprang from 
the dog-cart and caught her hand, he had no thought 
of anything save how beautiful she was, and how 
awfully glad he was to see her again. 

But Helen, though her pulses were galloping as 
fast, if not faster, than his, had the self-possession to 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


132 

think of many things — how that odious Dolly Abbot 
came to be up in his dog-cart, and what had become 
of the duty whicli he had wired would detain him 
from her this day. It was clear he had not come here 
expecting to see her — his surprise and almost dismay 
had been too apparent for her to believe that for a 
moment. She shook hands hastily with Mrs. Stafford, 
whom she had known in London, and then turned 
back to him, determined to have the explanation out at 
once. But Dolly was too quick for her. Slipping up 
to him with her youngest and most innocent expres- 
sion turned on, and in her quietest voice, Dolly said, — 
“ Captain Stafford, do you remember what I told 
you about my tame- sea-gull the other day } Well, 
its wing doesn’t get a bit better, I am afraid it must 
be broken ; will you come and see .? ” 

“ Oh ! certainly ! ” he said politely. So Dolly, 
after shooting one little mocking glance at Lady Royd- 
more, led him away to a pasture at the back of the 
house, where there was a pond and a number of geese 
and ducks, as well as the sea-gull. There was a cow 
and a calf in the pasture too, and “ a pony that they 
let me ride sometimes when no 07ie else wants him,'’ 
and a kennel with an old boar-hound chained to it. 
To all these dumb friends of hers the artless Dolly 
took a childish delight in introducing him. Each 
time he made a feint of returning to the house, she 
had something fresh which he must please to look at. 

“ Lily won’t mind your being kind to me,” she 
pouted ; “and it doesn’t matter about the others.” 

“ I must have a yarn with Lady Roydmore ; she's 
an old friend of mine,” he explained. 

“ Is she } I am sorry ; I should like all your friends 
to be mine, and she’s horrid. ” 

“ No, no, I won’t have you say that of her,” he 
said loyally. But Dolly only lifted one shoulder like 
a thwarted child, and pouted again, and made her 
blue eyes dim with tears, and repeated, — 

“ But she is horrid ; at least she’s horrid to me. I 
know, if you go and have a yarn with her, that you’ll 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


^33 


never speak to me again, and then I shall break my 
heart." 

“You silly child," he said, putting his hand on. her 
shoulder in order to reassure her possibly. 

Then she brightened up and showed him another 
goose. Altogether, it was quite an hour before they 
returned to the house, and when they did so. Lady 
Roydmore was livid with a feeling to which she could 
give no name. It surely could not be “jealousy" of 
such “ a designing little minx " as Dolly Abbot.? 

For no reason on earth — for he had merely in- 
dulged in a farmyard inspection — the ordinarily cool, 
debonnair soldier felt guilty and confused as he came 
into Lady Roydmore’s presence. 

In the meantime, Mrs. Stafford had, out of lazy 
good-nature, and without having the slightest idea 
that by so doing she had annoyed Lady Roydmore, 
whom she greatly admired, been playing the cards 
of her young friend Dolly very cleverly. 

‘ ‘ I am leaving Plymouth to-morrow — going out to 
India to join my husband, you know, and I may 
not see Dolly again for many years. Will you let 
her come back and stay with me to-night, Mrs. Abbot .? 
It would be such a pleasure to me." 

Having it always well before her that poor Dolly 
was a homeless orphan, who must be treated with 
extra care and kindness on that account, Mrs. 
Abbot gave her consent warmly to the plan at once. 

“Poor Dolly will miss you terribly,” she said ; 
“ of course, if you wish to have her, she shall go 
back with you, and I will arrange about sending 
for her to-morrow." 

Small wonder that, when she heard this arrange- 
ment made. Lady Roydmore grew livid. 

But when Captain Stafford came in and sat himself 
down by her, she forgave him — woman-like — his 
share in the matter, and poured out the vials of her 
secret wrath on Dolly’s head alone. “ It had been 
the girl’s doing" — she was right there — “ that he had 
absented himself with her and made himself remark- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


134 

able, if not ridiculous.” She would give him a word 
or two of warning which might be of use in his fu- 
ture dealings with a girl in whom she intuitively per- 
ceived tlie spirit of a born intriguante. So, rising and 
putting her hand on his arm, and smiling at him with 
more than the old tenderly seductive grace, she 
said, — 

“ Come and take a stroll in the garden, Harry. I 
have so many things to tell you. Jane is with Flor- 
ence, you know.” 

“ Don't be long, Harry,” his sister cried after him 
as he was following his old love. “ You know I 
have such a lot of packing to do to-night.” 

“All right!” he said; but when he got out into 
the garden, and Helen slipped her hand into his arm, 
he forgot his sister’s orders ; he forgot everything, in 
fact, saving that he had loved this woman desperately 
once, and that she was more fascinating and quite as 
good-looking as ever. 

“So this was the ‘duty’ that kept you from coming 
to me, Harry,” she began lightly — she was far too 
clever a woman to scold or reproach a lover who 
was wavering in the balance. “Well, all’s well that 
ends well, and it has ended very well indeed, as we 
have met.” 

“You see, Lily is off to-morrow ; I couldn’t throw 
her over. ” 

“Naturally you could not, any more than you can 
avoid driving Miss Abbot back to-day, as your sister 
has invited her. It strikes rhe as such an incongruous 
union between those two. Mrs. Stafford is such a 
perfect, exquisitely-mannered gentlewoman — but it 
goes without saying that she should be that ; it would 
be impossible for a brother of yours to choose any 
other type of woman for his wife.” 

“Yes, Lily’s all that,” he assented. “ May I 
smoke .? thanks. Now for the other one ; what about 
her type t ” 

“A very common one, Harry. Silent, to conceal 
ignorance of the majority of subjects that are dis- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


135 

cussed in public. Artless, to cover up the artifice 
which is the strongest element in her character. A 
girl who may end on the pave, or in the peerage, for 
there are several weak young peers about. One, on 
the whole, who makes me thank Providence that I 
have no young brother who might be tempted by 
the little fox to hunt her. Am I right } ” 

“I really don’t know,” he said coldly. “I have 
not made an exhaustive study of the poor little girl’s 
character. ” 

She laughed. 

“Nor have I ; but it revealed itself to me in a flash. 
Do you know, Harry, I sometimes feel sorry that I 
see through and through people whether I wish to or 
not. I constantly have to avert my eyes from the 
faces of those who are speaking to me, because I 
don’t want them to read in mine how fully their 
minds and motives are revealed to me.” 

“ Perhaps it has been a good thing for you, Helen, 
that your mind and motives have not always been 
so clearly revealed to other people. Let little Dolly 
Abbot alone — she has nothing to do with us — and 
tell me what you have been doing with yourself since 
I saw you — and — where is Miss Herries.?” 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE DUBIOUS NEUTRAL GROUND BETWEEN LOVE AND FRIEND- 
SHIP. 

“By Jove ! I am sorry to hear Miss Herries is at The 
Court. Mrs. Graves will do her no good. Does she 
like being there ? ” 

Helen shrugged her shoulders. 

“It is some time since I heard from Jane. When 
she wrote last she seemed to be happy enough. 
There are some people called Penarth who appear 


136 the honourable jane. 

to keep the ball rolling, and Captain Salusbury was 
staying at The Court. 

“Poor old Geof,’' Captain Stafford said heartily. 

“ Why expend pity on him I suppose he’s man 
enough to put an end to the intimacy both with the 
Penarths and Salusbury if he disapproves of it ? ” 

“ He’s man enough to entirely trust the woman he 
loves and has married, and he makes a mistake in 
doing it.” 

“Well, we can’t set the crooked matter straight. 
Tell me about yourself. Do you bore yourself very 
much at Plymouth ? ” 

“ Not a bit.” 

“I am sorry to hear it,” she said, with petulant 
candour. “ My appearance on the boards would 
have been ever so much more rapturously hailed if 
you had. Do you know, the mere prospect of talk- 
ing to you again gave me keener pleasure than any- 
thing has given me since we parted. Think what 
the realisation must be to me, since the anticipation 
was so good ! ” 

“You always knew how to flatter judiciously. I 
will be equally frank. Other people will seem very 
tepid to me after our pleasant re-union. You must 
come in and let me show Plymouth to you ! When 
can you come ? To-morrow ? Lunch with me, and 
after luncheon I’ll show you the Hoe, and the Devil’s 
Point, and the Barbican. You’ll see a bit of real life 
on the Barbican that will be a novelty to you.” 

“ I will put myself entirely in your hands, and you 
shall show me what you please. I suppose Mrs. 
Abbot will send me in } ” 

“Didn’t she say that her husband would be driving 
in to fetch Dolly ? can’t you come with him ? ” 

She nodded a reluctant assent. 

“You don’t like the idea.?” 

“If he drives me in, he will probably think that he 
is in courtesy bound to devote himself to my service. 
I confess the idea does not smile upon me.’’ 

“ Why shouldn’t he lunch with us, he and Dolly?” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


137 

You have lost all your tact as well as your taste/' 
she retorted impatiently. “You see I dislike that 
girl. I admit she is unimportant to the last degree, 
and it is rather undignified on my part to own up to 
a dislike to her ; but the fact is I never have stood 
upon my dignity where you are concerned, and I 
have always told you the truth. I dislike her as I 
dislike other creeping things — both small and great. 
If she is added to the attractions of the Hoe, the 
Devil's Point and the Barbican, you mu^t carry out 
your programme unassisted by me.” 

Her impatient petulance did not displease him. 
She was looking strangely pretty, and more hurt than 
angry. After all, it was only womanly that she 
should wish to have him all to herself. There was 
nothing ill-natured or mean about her feeling towards 
Dolly Abbot. Her dislike to the girl was merely the 
offspring of her feeling for himself. 

“I don’t believe that I shall ever be able to carry 
out any programme unassisted by you, Helen,” he 
whispered pressing her hand closer to his coat. 
“ Get them to send you down to the train to catch the 
12.50, and I will meet you at the Milbay Station. 
We shall then be perfectly independent, and I will 
drive you back here in the afternoon. Does this plan 
meet your views, Queen of my Soul ? ” 

“If I were that in very truth, any and every plan 
you made would meet my views, Harry,” she was 
saying, when a quick, light step on the gravel close 
behind them made them start and turn round to face 
Dolly. 

“ I am so sorry I startled you,” that young lady 
began plausibly. “ I made all the noise I could, but 
my feet are not very heavy, I am afraid. Captain 
Stafford, Lily has sent me to ask you if you mean to 
drive her back to-day ? I couldnt help myself, I had 
to come.” 

She looked so wistful and anxious, so like a chidden 
child, that* Captain Stafford forgave her with more 
effusion than was necessary, Helen thought. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


138 

‘‘ My dear Dolly, Lily couldn’t have sent a sweeter 
little messenger. It’s rather a joke you re trying to 
make those fairy-like little feet make a row on the 
gravel.” 

Miss Dolly received the compliment with down- 
cast eyes. Suddenly she raised them and shot a 
glance at Helen. 

“ How silly Lady Roydmore must think you, for 
she doesn’t know what great friends we have grown 
to be in the last few weeks, does she.? You see,” 
she added, turning on the ingenuous stop with won- 
derful celerity for so young a hand, “ you see. Lady 
Roydmore, till I met Captain Stafford no one had 
ever been kind to me and he has been so very kind, 

that it’s no wonder that I ” She paused, and filled 

up the silence with a well-managed blush. 

“Thank God that girl is not my daughter,” said 
Lady Roydmore to herself ; and she added mentally, 
“And I should think her mother has reason to thank 
God that she is dead.” 

Before Helen was out of her bedroom the follow- 
ing morning, she received the following telegram 
from Captain Stafford : 

“Am sending a saddle-horse out for you. Hope 
you've brought your habit. You’ll see rne at twelve. ” 

“ He has not forgotten. He is giving me the 
greatest pleasure I can have,” she thought exult- 
antly. 

In the old, beautiful, bygone days, when first they 
had been lovers, these two had spent the best part of 
their time on horseback in each other’s company. 
She rode brilliantly but unpretentiously, pluckily and 
well. Her hands were as light as the proverbial 
feather, but her wrists were like little bars of steel, 
and her temper, where horses were concerned, was 
simply perfect. Added to these essential qualities 
she had a subtly-balanced seat, and one of those lux- 
uriously developed figures, with length and slender- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


139 

ness of waist, which are so matchless in the saddle. 

“ How glad I am that I am not like Praed’s woman 
in the Troubadour — ‘too cold to sing, too tall to 
dance ; ’ that must mean that she was too tall to ride 
also. • Some of those lines do fit me like a glove, 
though,’’ and she half murmured, half hummed the 
following rhymes as she went to her bath,^ — 

“ She had seen six-and-thirty springs. 

And still her blood’s warm wandering 
Told tales, in every throbbing vein. 

Of youth’s high hope and Passion’s reign, 

And dreams from which that lady’s heart 
Had parted ! or had seemed to part. 

She had no wiles from cunning France, 

Too cold to sing, too tall to dance ; 

But yet, where’er her footsteps went 
She was the Queen of Merriment.” 

“I am all that, and can dance and ride into the 
bargain,” Helen thought triumphantly, as she sheathed 
herself in one of the plainest and smartest of habits it 
had ever been her fortune to have moulded on to her. 

“Oh, dear ! I feel as if I should win him to-day ; but 
what’s the good of winning what one can’t keep } I 
believe I feel something better ! I love him so, that 
I can give him up to Jane if he wants her, but never 
to a lesser woman than Jane — never ! never ! ” 

“You solved the difficulty very prettily,” she said 
to him an hour later, when they were riding back to 
Plymouth together. “This dear little weedy, breedy 
chestnut is a charming substitute for Miss Dolly 
Abbot. Is she your own ? ” 

“ Do you like her.? ” 

“So far, immensely.” 

“ Then she is yours.” 

Lady Roydmore shook her head. 

“You are too fond of scattering your gifts broad- 
cast to the many ; the few will never appreciate them 
while you do this.” 

“You must have the mare, you shall have the 
mare,” he replied, becoming determined in propor- 


140 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


tion as she opposed him. “She was bred and broke 
to carry you, you re a bit of her already. Come down 
into these meadows ; there’s a ripping jump, and she’ll 
take it like a swallow. I want to see the habit in air 
over that. ” 

“On one condition, Harry,” she said, swerving 
slightly towards him, “ I'll take her over anythingj^o/^ 
tell me to go at, and I’ll take her to my heart of hearts 
as your gift if you’ll promise me that I may give her 
to Jane the day Jane marries.” 

“A curious condition that ! ’’ 

“A fanciful one, perhaps; but you must promise 
me that you’ll let me fulfil it. ” 

“ Supposing she marries a man who doesn’t know 
a mare from a mouse ” 

He knit his brows and thought for a moment. Then 
he added, “I think I’ll promise, for the day Jane 
marries will see me a married man.” 

“You’re so curious, Harry; sometimes I think I 
know you, and sometimes ” 

“I’m not worth thinking about,” he interrupted. 
“And just know this, — 

“ I know that Folly’s breath is weak, 

And would not stir a feather, 

But yet I would not have her speak 
Your name and mine together.” 

“That means that you are afraid of compromising 
me, as you can offer no compensation if gossip is 
aroused,” she said fearlessly. “Well, you are right, 
and you are doing the manly and generous thing in 
warning me. But understand that I take no heed of 
‘ Folly’s breath.’ It can’t injure me, however much 
it blows upon me. I value your friendship too much 
to surrender a bit of the display of it for any fanciful, 
prudential consideration. You ought to have under- 
stood that I have prepared myself for any event, 
however painful, when I told you that I would give 
the mare to Jane the day she marries.” 

She held her hand out to him steadily, but there 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


141 

were tears in her eyes. It was easy enough to utter 
her renunciation, but it was hard to realise that he 
was ready to accept it. He took her hand and raised 
it to his lips, to the intense amazement and amuse- 
ment of a farm- labourer, to whom such courtly court- 
ship was as one of the occult arts. 

“Sometimes I wish I had never seen Jane. It was 
your doing that I did so, and knowing her has un- 
settled me. Why did you try to arrange my life for 
me, Helen.?" 

He looked at her very tenderly as he asked this, 
and she understood the feeling that influenced him. 
He meant her to believe that if he had never met 
Jane, he would have allowed his old love for herself 
to re-ignite in his heart. But, as it was, he had met 
Jane, and the memory of Jane stood between them. 

“Jane is free, so are you ! why do you procrastinate 
and give her time to contrast your indifference with 
the devotion of other men .? If you were really 
honestly in love with her, you would tell her so. " 

“The fact is, I like and admire Miss Herries more 
than I ever — No, I won't say more than I ever liked 
a woman before, but certainly as much. But I sup- 
pose I like my freedom even better. The prospect 
of settling down to a humdrum, domestic routine, 
with one woman for my constant companion day 
and night, appals me. I know myself pretty well, 
and I know that I should get sick of Venus herself if 
she became monotonous ; and how on earth can a 
woman avoid becoming monotonous when she has 
to trot round the same little domestic circus day after 
day, and know that so it will go on so long as you 
both do live." 

“If you were as much in love with Jane as you 
once were with — some one else, the dread of being 
bored by her wouldn't deter you from matrimony.” 

“I was an awful young fool in the days when I 
was so much in love with ‘some one else,' that I 
would have risked anything for her. You’re a dear, 
clever, sweet, beautiful woman, Helen, but if you 


142 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


were my wife at this present moment, I shouldn’t 
find you half so entertaining, and you wouldn’t be 
half so well pleased to rid.e through these solitudes 
with me. We have actually amused each other so 
well that we’ve forgotten the purpose for which we 
came into the meadows, and passed the water-jurnp. 
Give her her head as soon as she catches sight of it ; 
you couldn’t hold her away from anything if you 
tried, so it’s just as well not to try. There’s nothing 
so perfect as you are on horseback, excepting Ariadne 
on her panther. The mare must remain your posses- 
sion for ever. Whatever happens, you must keep 
Makehaste. ” 

“You withdraw your permission for me to give 
her to Jane the day Jane marries ! ” 

“ I do. Jane would never become her half as well 
.as you do. You would lead a cavalry charge splen- 
didly, and yet there is nothing of the Amazon about 
you. Let her go. ” 

The last bit of instruction was quite superfluous. 
Makehaste had caught sight of the paling, with the 
brook beyond it, and had gone before Captain Staf- 
ford could speak. Then for an hour they amused 
themselves, and made the world a Paradise to their 
horses by steeple-chasing towards Plymouth, Helen 
riding as she had rarely ridden before, under the sub- 
tly-pleasant influence of the conviction she had that 
she was riding herself back into his vacillating heart. 

He felt very proud of her. Being only a man, and 
not a superhuman monster it did gratify him greatly, 
as they rode through the town, to see that other men, 
who were excellently good judges both of women and 
horses, had evidently no fault to find either with 
Makehaste or her rider. While as for Lady Roydmore 
herself, her heart bounded as exultantly in her breast 
as the bounding, bonnie chestnut beneath her, when 
he lifted her out of the saddle in the hotel yard. 

“ It may be evanescent, but for the moment I oc- 
cupy the upper story of his heart,” she was thinking, 
while he was saying, — 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. I43 

** If life could be all riding, I’d ride through it with 
you, Helen. Now I’ll charter a hansom and take you 
round the ancient town, and show you where Drake 
and Hawkins played bowls and talked in epigrams 
when the Spanish Fleet hove in sight.” 

They followed out the programme pretty nearly as 
he had written it. For an hour they looked at the 
sea, and were nearly blinded by the glare on the Hoe. 
Then they went down to the Barbican, where Helen 
tried to find traces of Baring Goulds wonderful little 
heroine, Joanna in “Court Royal.” 

“ Du Maurier must have been here for his model of 
the Jew, but I don’t see any girl as pretty and pictu- 
resque as Joanna,” she was saying, as they threaded 
their way back on foot through some of Plymouth’s 
most noisome slums. A minute afterwards they 
emerged into Bedford Street close by St. Andrew’s 
Church, and all signs of slumminess had vanished. 

“ Here comes a very pretty and picturesque little 
specimen of a Devonshire girl,” he replied, laughing 
a little maliciously as he pointed out Dolly Abbot, 
who tripped to meet them with a touching air of sur- 
prise and innocence that was contradicted by her first 
words, spoken in an audible aside to Captain Stafford. 

“ Oh ! Captain Stafford, I hope you won’t be very 
angry with me for not having waited for you as I 
promised, but I had some shopping to do for my aunt, 
and you know if I forget any of her commissions I 
have a pleasant time of it.” 

“ Did you promise to wait forme } I don’t remem- 
ber.” 

“ Then I’ll never wait for you again, as you forget 
so quickly,” she answered sadly, and she managed to 
make her eyes look as if there were some unshed tears 
in them. And though Helen felt sure that no such 
promise had either been given or accepted, she felt 
annoyed. 

“ I am going to take Lady Roydmore back to have 
some tea at my quarters. You must come too, 
Polly ” 


144 


THE HONO C/E ABLE /A ACE. 


“ Perhaps Lady Roydmore would rather I didn’t 
come,” Dolly interrupted timidly, on which Lady 
Roydmore glanced at her with such careless disdain 
that the ingenuous little lady made up her mind to let 
a poisoned arrow into the woman of the world’s 
peace of mind some day. But Captain Stafford be- 
lieved in the ingenuousness, and answered in good 
faith, — 

“Oh, nonsense! Lady Roydmore wants you to 
come as much as I do.” 

“ Then you don’t want me very much,” the inno- 
cent Dolly whispered. “Thank you. Captain Staf- 
ford,” she said aloud, “but my uncle will be waiting 
for me, and I am ‘only Dolly,’ you know, and have 
to give up to other people always.” 

Helen only heard the words that were spoken aloud, 
but she understood the purport of Dolly’s whisper as 
thoroughly as if the girl had raved it out in stentorian 
tones. 

“ If he can stoop to entangle himself in a web that 
such a girl as Miss Dolly Abbot can spread, he isn’t 
worth a thought even from me ; while as for Jane, how 
can he dare to pretend to love her, while he permits 
himself to be the familiarly treated half-friendj half- 
lover of such an underbred syren as this local Vivien ! ” 
thought the hardened woman of the world, in a fit 
of honest, generous, jealous rage against the minor 
power who was inveighing Captain Stafford to dance 
to her piping in a garish, vulgar light. Her whole 
thought was for him in the matter. His honour, his 
happiness, his welfare. These all must suffer, must 
be lowered at least, she felt intuitively, if in sheer, 
careless kind-heartedness he let this girl coil herself 
around him and his career. “But if I interfere he 
will think I am jealous 1 So I am ; not jealous of her, 
but for him I It’s so hard, though, to mark the dif- 
ference. I would bless Jane for beating me out of the 
field if she would crush this little snake at the same 
time.” 

These thoughts had coursed though her mind so 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 145 

rapidly that Dolly was only a stone’s throw from them 
when she said, — 

“ I have altered my mind about having tea with 
you to-day. The mare must be rested by this time, 
and I want to get back and think.” 

“ You’re annoyed with me for being kind to that 
little Dolly. She is just that, a 'little dolly,’ who 
claims kindness from men because she is such a poor, 
little, dear, unworldly child. There is something 
quite pathetic in the way in which she shows grati- 
tude to me for the most ordinary civility. ” 

'' If she showed gratitude to her uncle and aunt for 
their most extraordinary kindness I should think better 
of her. As it is — well, whatever I say you will mis- 
understand me, so I had better say nothing, excepting 
that I wish with all my heart that Jane Herries were 
ihere. You say you shrink from facing life with her 
for fear you should find it monotonous. What would 
you find it with a creature that is half-fox and half- 
serpent } ” 

“ How awfully unjust even a clever woman can be 
when she gets a fad against another woman into her 
head ! The girl hasn’t a thought of hooking me, or 
any man. She’s as fresh as a daisy, shows her likes 
and dislikes with child-like openness and simplicity, 
and is ” 

“ My favourite aversion at present, so we won’t 
speak of her any more after to-day. I only hope her 
' child-like ’ candour, openness and simplicity will 
not lead you on to write any kind-hearted effusions to 
her. You’re apt to say more than you mean exactly 
when you take a pen in your hand. And to such a 
loving, grateful ' child ’ as Dolly Abbot, you might 
perhaps open your heart a little too freely on paper 
some unlucky day.” 

" If I ever get into a scrape I’ll come to you to help 
me out of it ; you don’t mind hard hitting.” 

“You don’t know how hard I can hit in a cause I 
have at heart, and as I have your happiness and wel- 
fare very much at heart, I shall deal the hardest blows 
10 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


146 

I can when I see either assailed. Now you may ride 
a little way homewards with me, but I won’t take you 
all the way, or you will be late for mess.” 

‘‘ Never mind dinner,” he said, very much as if he 
meant it. But at the same time he thought her very 
considerate to remember it. Accordingly, when he 
had accompanied her a mile out of the town, and the 
country road leading to Plym Tor stretched out straight 
before her, he took leave of her, promising to come 
out and call again in a day or two. 

So Helen rode on alone, feeling satisfied that, if she 
had not gained much ground with him to-day, that at 
least she had not lost any. Feeling also that though 
she had given him to understand that though she 
would be no barrier between him and Jane Herries, 
there would be war to the knife between herself 
(Helen) and any lesser woman who should enter the 
lists for his heart and hand against her. 

And he rode back alone, thinking what a charming, 
versatile companion she was, and how good-looking 
and plucky in the saddle. Thinking, too, how pleas- 
ant it was that for some time to come he should be able 
to have that companionship and contemplate those 
good looks whenever he pleased, and with a delicious 
sense of freedom, thinking that he could get away from 
her whenever he liked. Undoubtedly a friend had a 
great advantage over a wife ; or rather a man who 
had succeeded in forming a strong and intimate 
friendship with an attractive woman had a great ad- 
vantage over the man who won her for his own. ” 

His reflections were suddenly interrupted by a voice 
saying,— 

“Oh, Captain Stafford, I am so glad to meet you — 
I didn’t think the road was half as long. I’m dead 
tired already.” 

“How came you here, Dolly.? — walking! where 
is your uncle .? ” 

“He had to go a round of visits, so, as I hate 
waiting outside in the dog-cart, I said I’d walk out to 
the station, and he could pick me up as he passed. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


147 

But it is such a long^ way, and so lonely, and I am 
so tired.” 

She looked so young and innocent, with two bright 
spots caused by fatigue and excitement on her little 
face, that he had not the heart even to blame her to 
himself for this obvious attempt to waylay him. On 
the contrary, he dismounted, lifted her into his saddle, 
turned his horse round, and with the words, — 

‘ ‘ ril take you back to the station ; hang on tight, 
or you'll be over on the offside.” 

She was slipping about uneasily, and was horribly 
frightened, but she would have ridden a unicorn if he 
had led it for her, in order that she might have the felic- 
ity of vaunting the fact by-and-by to Lady Roydmore. 
Still, when she stole a glance at him presently, she 
was less elated. He was looking very grave, almost 
cross. The fact was, that the shades of evening were 
falling fast, and he was feeling that he might as well 
have made himself late for the mess-dinner for Helen's 
sake as for the sake of this local flirt. 

‘ ‘ I think, if you would let me put my hand on your 
shoulder, I could keep on better, "she murmured, put- 
ting a nervous, appealing tremble into her voice. 
So along the rest of the road to the station he trudged 
in the gathering gloom, with Miss Dolly Abbot lean- 
ing rather heavily on his shoulder. 


CHAPTER V. 

WORSE THAN WIDOWED. 

There came a day when Florence Graves — having 
pawned not only all her own jewellery, but all Jane's, 
having borrowed every penny of her sister's small 
capital, and persuaded her to draw the next quarterly 
instalment of her income in advance, having quar- 
relled with her husband till he almost lost sight of 
the graceful blonde he had married, and saw in her 


148 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

only an excited virago — told herself that things had 
come to such a desperate pass that she mighd as well 
fline free of all restraint and bound over the border 
altogether. 

She had in her possession several letters from Cap- 
tain Salusbury, in which he had repeated what he 
had often told her verbally, namely, that “if she 
were a free woman he would gladly, proudly, ardently 
and immediately lay himself and everything he pos- 
sessed at her feet. ” She was not a free woman, but 
the law could make her one if she only acted with 
vigour and determination. The game was played 
out at The Court. Geoffrey had sold hunters, carriage- 
horses, pictures, plate^ all and everything, in fact, 
that had conduced to her happiness and glory. The 
prospect before her was insufferably dull. The 
Penarths having used her as a cork-jacket to float 
them into the better set, now offered her the cold 
shoulder. The Graveses and their friends reproached 
her with having ruined the family, and Jane’s presence 
was a perpetual sting to her. 

“I’ll end it all and go,” she thought one day, and 
the uncertainty that hung about the results of her 
contemplated action aroused all the gambling spirit 
within her. 

She left no word of parting for those from whom 
she was flying, nor did she send a word of warning 
to the one to whorn she was going. She just dressed 
herself in a plain walking costume, and went down 
to catch a mid-day train to town. The contents of 
her purse just covered her first-class fare — she had no 
intention of denying herself any luxury ; he could 
pay for it. 

He was out when she reached the hotel at which 
he was staying, but this in nowise discomposed her. 
She requested to be shown to his private room, and 
ordered tea. It amused her to find several photo- 
graphs of other pretty women strewn about, but it 
did not annoy her. He had often sworn, verbally 
and on paper, that if she were free he would become 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


149 

her legal property with pride. Well, now she had 
made herself free, and she had his letters in her 
pocket. 

It was nearly eight o'clock before she heard his 
voice coming along towards the door of the room, in 
eager and excited conversation with other men. Then 
the door was thrown open, and he swung into the 
room, followed for a step by the other men. 

She had risen, and was advancing smilingly to 
meet him, but his first words, and the way in which 
the other men fell back, checked her. 

“Good God, Florence! what madness is this.? 
Alone ! here ! Let me take you back at once, or 
rather send you back." 

“ Send me back I Where.? I have no home, and 
I never mean to see my husband again," she said 
determinately, reseating herself. “I have come to 
you for good ; you have often said — and written — 
what you would do if I were free. Well, I have made 
myself free, and I have come to you." 

“You have not run away ? ” 

“ Not at all. I walked to the station and took the 
express train on. I couldn’t bear my life any longer, 
so I have come to put it into your keeping. You 
have often said " 

“ Your madness will ruin me as well as yourself," 
he interrupted. “ Thank heaven I’m under orders to 
sail in three days for India to rejoin the second bat- 
talion. Do you see now what you have done.?" 

“I’ll go with you," she declared, with the hardi- 
hood of despair. 

“And so ruin me altogether, and get me kicked 
out of the service. Come, let me do the only thing I 
can for you — send you to some friend’s house, and 
wire in your name to your husband that you came 
up to do some shopping, and will be back to-mor- 
row. " 

“I have no money left ; nothing with me but what 
I have on," she whimpered disappointedly. “You 
often said I was the love of your life/’ 


1 50 the honourable jane. 

never hinted that I would bolt with you,” he 
interrupted; “it would be suicidal! I should be 
ruined, you would be scouted, and we should both 
be heartily sick of each other in a week. Make the 
best of your own mistake. Go back, leave me before 
the manager of this hotel sniffs mischief and requests 
you to leave. For your own sake, go 1 ” 

“ And this is man’s love ! ” she said bitterly. 

“It’s the best I have to offer you. How would 
you be bettered if I dragged you and your name 
through the mud .? I tell you you would be as sick of 
me in a few weeks as you are of your husband, and 
I should probably hate you for having blasted my 
career and ruined me.” 

“Why don’t you send in your papers ; then you 
wouldn’t be ruined.” 

“Leave the service that I love ten times better than 
I could love any woman, just when I’ve a chance of 
being in for something good in the fighting line in 
India.? No, no.” 

She threw herself back in her chair and burst into 
an uncontrollable fit of weeping that was simply 
awful to him. Supposing any one should hear her .? 
Supposing any one of the men who had been arrested 
on the threshold by her presence should have recog- 
nised her.? He hated her for her reckless selfishness, 
but while she wept so stormily she had him in her 
power. 

‘ ‘ I will do anything you like, in reason, if you’ll 
only come out of this. I have a married sister who 
will do what I ask her, without asking you any ques- 
tions. Let me take you there at once.” 

But Florence was enraged and obstinate. 

“ If you make me leave you ; if you turn me out, 
I don’t care what becomes of me,” she muttered. 
“Why didn’t your conscientious scruples stop you 
from writing me all the lies you have written.” Then 
she harked back to her former declaration — that he 
“had promised to lay his heart, hand and fortune at 
her feet, if she were only free. ” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


151 


There it is/’ he urged ; “ you are not free.” 

“ Geoffrey will divorce me now, and make me free.” 

“And in freeing you, will ruin me. I shall be dis- 
missed the service, or have to leave compulsorily. I 
shall be run for hideous damages, and — well, rumed 
— that is the long and the short of it, and all for a 
woman with whom I’ve never had, and never will 
have, other than friendly relations. Come, Mrs. 
Graves,” he added, with a sudden severe impatience 
that impressed her, “l am not going to let appear- 
ances play your game, and ruin me by staying here 
like a rat in a hole. I shall leave this hotel, and go 
back to my quarters at Aldershot. I can catch the 
cold-meat train still, unless you’ll let me escort you 
to my sister’s, and promise me that you will go back 
to The Court to-morrow.” 

She rose up, crying piteously, and made one more 
effort to subjugate him. Casting herself upon his 
breast, wreathing her arms closely round his neck, 
she drew his head down and pressed her lips to his. 

“ Oh, I love you so, I love you so,” she moaned. 
^ ‘ I know I am selfish, weak, wicked, ungrateful, reck- 
less — everything that it’s bad for a woman to be — but 
I \oYQ,you. Yes, I do ; better than any better woman 
will ever love you. The mere touch of your hand 
sends every drop of blood leaping like fire through 
my veins. I would give up everything else in which 
I have taken pleasure if I could be with you always. 
Everything seems grey and cold and dull when you 
are not near me. I would rather bear hard words 
from you than listen to the softest and kindest that 
any other man can speak. Don’t send me away. I 
shall eat my heart out with longing for you if you do. 
Let me go out to India as a stranger to you, and 
meet you there. I will change my name ; I’ll have 
my death put in the papers ; I’ll throw every one who 
knew me in my old life off the scent. No one will 
suppose that you have anything to do with me. I 
will be so cautious, so very cautious, that you will 
not be ruined. Only let me know that you are mine, 


152 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


and that you look upon me as yours, for I love you 
so, I love you so ! 

He would have been more or less than man if he 
had not pressed kisses back upon the lips that were 
imploring him to help her on to destroy them both so 
wildly. He did kiss her, desperately and passion- 
ately, but he kept his head, and before Florence knew 
what he was doing he had sent for a cab, and was on 
his way with her to his sister’s house. 

That lady was a little interested, but not at all in- 
quisitive. She received all his directions in silence, 
and then promised to obey them. 

She has been a fool, I suppose, and thought you 
meant all you said. Poor thing. I’ll see her off to- 
morrow, and wire to the husband in her name. She 
will have come to her senses by the morning.” 

“ She loves me awfully,” the brother said in reply, 
“ be kind to her; she has only been indiscreet, but 
no one will ever know anything about it if you do as 
I tell you.” 

“It’s a mercy for you that you are off so soon. 
Poor woman. You are a very nice fellow, my dear 
boy ; but what in the world can she see in you to 
make her ready to damage herself for you } ” 

There came a passing look of something like shame 
and contrition on his face as his sister spoke. 

‘ ‘ I wish I could think it was only vanity and love 
of excitement that made her want to throw herself on 
my protection. But it’s more than that. She loves 
me, and I’m afraid I’ve embittered her life.” 

“Oh, she’ll get over it when she doesn’t see you, 
dear!” his sister rejoined hopefully; “there is 
nothing in the world like absence for making the 
heart grow fonder of some one else ! ” 

Which comforting remark had not at all the effect 
upon Captain Salusbury which his sister intended it 
to have. His memory, on the contrary, was rather 
delighted to linger on the passionate tones in which 
Florence had told him, “ I love you so ! I love you 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


153 

The next day Mrs. Graves, very considerably tamed, 
and feeling rather dubious as to her reception, went 
back to Tlie Court. 

The telegram had been received, and Jane was at 
the station to meet her. Jane, with a very pale face 
and a very frightened aspect. For a minute Florence’s 
heart fell down to fearful depths as the thought that, 
“after all, she had been found out, and had better 
have stayed away,” crossed her mind. The next 
moment Jane’s first words reassured her on her own 
account, but gave her such a shock of approaching 
evil that she burst into a flood of the first tears of 
penitence and sorrow for another person which she 
had ever shed in her life. 

“Oh ! Flo, poor Flo ! ” Jane began, in a piteously 
pathetic voice, “I’m so glad you are home again. 
There is something dreadful the matter with Geoffrey ; 
the doctor thinks he has gone mad. I oughtn’t 
to have told you so suddenly ; perhaps he may 
recover ; poor, poor Flo ! ” 

As the sisters drove home, the young wife realised 
that this was no excited overstatement on her sister’s 
part. Every one they met looked at her with more 
respectful sympathy than she had ever received in 
that neighbourhood before. It was clear that what- 
ever had upset poor Geoffrey Graves’ not very strong 
brain, there was no suspicion of her conduct being a 
factor in the case. On further inquiry she found that 
he had never even been conscious of her absence. 
He had been brought home on the previous afternoon 
by some farm labourers who had found him wander- 
ing about in the fields without his hat ; and after a 
long period of maniacal frenzy he had sunk into a 
state of lethargy for some hours. From this he had 
emerged to pass into one of gibbering imbecility, 
which was declared to be the worst stage of all. 

It was some time before they could persuade 
Florence to go into the room and try the effect of her 
jwesence on the man who had loved her so faithfully, 
if foolishly, and whom she had ruined. She shrank 


154 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


from what she might see, conjuring up visions of the 
fearful personal change that might have come over 
him ; and when at length she was half led, half 
carried into the room, the reality was far worse than 
her anticipation. The strong young man looked 
‘shrunken, old, pallid, haggard to a hideous degree. 
The mania must have been working its mischief in 
his mind and frame for many a weary day, the 
specialist who was speedily brought down by Lord 
Roydmore told them. From the first the case was 
pronounced hopeless, and preparations were made 
to remove him with as little delay as possible to a 
private asylum. 

When she heard this, Florence felt a mountain 
weight removed from her heart. Whatever the 
trouble had been which had developed the latent 
mania, it had not been the knowledge that she had 
been false and frail enough to run away from him to 
seek the protection of another man. She felt almost vir- 
tuous and self-satisfied as she reflected on how she had 
been preserved from the last step, the final, fatal fall, 
by the drastic measures which Captain Salusbury had 
taken for her rescue from the peril into which he was 
not quite innocent of having drawn her. It was very 
sad and pitiful, of course, that Geoffrey should have 
come to such an untimely end, as far as real “life’’ 
was concerned. “ But,” as she kept on assuring her 
brother, “she was blameless in all respects, excepting 
in the matter of having been a little extravagant ; and 
poor Geof had never exerted any authority over her 
expenditure.” 

“I don’t want to hit you now you’re down, Flo,” 
Roydmore had replied, “but you’ll have to look to 
your ways and means pretty sharply now. You’ve 
made ducks and drakes of the property, I hear from 
your mother-in-law. What do you propose doing } ” 

“ You’ll help me. Jack .? Surely you’ll help me ? ” 
she asked wistfully. 

Roydmore looked grave. 

“ In a few weeks I shall not be a free agent, Flor- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


155 


ence. A marriage has just been arranged between 
myself and a Miss Levison. She will bring all the 
dollars into the firm, and her father will take jolly 
good care that I shan’t have a chance of squander- 
ing them unless she pleases.” 

“Jewess, I suppose Florence remarked. 

“Yes, and a very handsome one. I have done a 

very good thing for myself ” 

“But you won’t be able to hold out a helping, 
hand to an erring sister .? ” Florence said bitterly. 
“Well, as usual, 1 shall fall back on Jane; she will 

stay with me ” 

“ And you will spend her income .? ” 

“She will share my home,” Florence told him, 
with as much dignity as her desperate and depressed 
condition allowed her to assume. 


But Jane, when the case was put before her with 
much grace and pathos by beautiful, young, har- 
rassed Mrs. Graves, would do nothing of the sort. 

‘ ‘ You must take it all, poor Flo, ” she said. ‘ ‘ Think, 
there will be the three hundred a year which you will 
have to pay for Geoffrey, and the other three hundred 
will help you to live on here in your own home till 
a brighter time comes. There are no debts } You 
don’t owe anything now, do you } ” 

“No,” Florence promptly assured her, “there 
were no debts, unless poor Geoffrey had any of 
which she knew nothing.” 

Jane waved off that idea impatiently. 

“So you shall live on here, and rouse yourself to 
lead a nobler life than the one you have been lead- 
ing.” 

The girl trembled at her own audacity as she said 
this, but Florence listened, startled and surprised. 

“ I have always liked the idea of being forced to 
help myself, and take care of myself,” Jane went on ; 
“ and I think,” she added frankly, “that if you feel 
that I have given up everything 1 can for you and to 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


156 

you, that you won’t waste my sacrifice, Florence — 
that you will use it well.” 

“ I can’t take it. I won't take it,” Florence declared 
with energy ; but the next moment she was asking, 
“ If I did the only thing left for me to do, and ac- 
cepted your offer, what would you do, Jane? Not 
that you will be driven to such an extreme measure 
as work. Roydmore would never hear of that.” 

“But Roydmore s wife will, I fancy,” Jane laughed. 
“Don’t think that I shall be easily influenced away 
from my intention. I am sick of the shadows in the 
life I’ve been leading since we left dear old Bath. I 
want to do something for myself and other people. I 
want to feel that I am not wasting every minute of 
the life God has given me. I want to work, and for- 
get a trouble that I more than half created for my- 
self. ” 

“ If it’s for your own good that you are resolved 
upon this course, it would be wrong, very wrong in- 
deed, of me to thwart you,” Florence acquiesced emo- 
tionally. “ I have not done so much good myself in 
life that I should try to stop another, and that other 
my own dear sister, from doing it.” 

“ I am glad you think I am right,” Jane said calm- 
ly, with just a tiny touch of sarcasm. 

The time was past when Florence could either 
deceive or control Jane. Florence’s soulless selfish- 
ness was patent to her younger sister. Florence’s 
deceptions were abhorrent to the franker and more 
fearless nature of the girl who still loved Florence 
well enough to be ready to make any sacrifice for her. 

“Besides,” Florence went on animatedly, becom- 
ing quite cheery at the improved prospect of her 
pecuniary affairs, “there is another reason for my 
accepting the use of your income, Jane. Heaven 
could never have intended that a parent should leave 
one daughter more than the other. Poor papa’s soul will 
be more likely*^ know peace when you carry your 
dear kind offer into effect. And another reason still is 
that it will stop the censorious mouths of that awful 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


157 

Mrs. Graves and her daughters in a great measure. 
They would have chattered enough if 1 had not been 
able to pay for poor Geoffrey being in that asylum. 
It’s a dreadful thing for such a young woman as I am 
to have an insane husband who may live for years, 
the doctors all say ; but it would give them such a 
handle for talking if I had not paid his expenses. 
Roydmore must be very poor-spirited to let those 
Levisons stamp all natural affection and consideration 
for his own sisters out of him. But thanks to you, 
you dear, kind, sensible thing, I shall not be com- 
pelled to crawl like a pauper to their gates. 

“You will religiously defray all poor Geoffrey’s 
expenses before you spend a penny on anything else 
— promise me that, Flo ! ” 

“Of course I shall,” Florence cried glibly, giving 
the promise without hesitation, and intending to keep 
it if quite convenient to herself. 

And she never thought once of asking me how or 
where I meant to try and make a living for myself,” 
Jane thought, as alone that night, tossing about in 
weary sleeplessness, she recalled that interview with 
her worse than widowed sister, and tried to chalk out 
a path in the wilderness of her own future, along 
which her untutored inexperienced step might travel 
safely and honourably. 

^ ‘ I have it ! ” she thought at length, jumping up 
and striking alight. “ I will write to Lady Royd- 
more ; she has heaps of friends, and may put me in 
the way of doing something. She can’t be jealous of 
me now ; after all this time, she must see as plainly 
as I do that she never had need to be jealous of me.” 

In the morning Florence told her that she (young 
Mrs. Graves) had come to the conclusion that it would 
be more prudent for her to let The Court for two or 
three years than to live in it. 

“ I have made up my mind to go into lodgings at 
some seaside place for some months, and to break 
up this establishment at once — as soon as you are 
gone, in fact,” she added ; and Jane told her, — 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


158 

“I posted a letter to Lady Roydmore this morn- 
ing. As soon as I get her answer, 1 will fix the day 
I go.’’ 

“Written to Lady Roydmore ! Well, I marvel at 
you, Jane. If it hadn’t been for that horrible Helen, 
we should both have been very well off. ” 

“ Helen has a kind heart,” Jane said curtly. 

“A very kind one for handsome Captain Stafford ! 
Don’t imagine that she will rob him of any to bestow 
it on you, who so nearly rivalled her with him once, ” 
Florence sneered, and Jane shrank and crimsoned as 
if she had received a blow in the face. To her there 
was something infinitely coarse in speaking of a love 
that had never been declared, and about which she 
had never permitted herself to speak. “ But poor Flo 
does not know what love is,” the girl thought com- 
passionately. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“kiss me, you darling.” 

Lady Roydmore received Jane’s letter of application for 
help in her attempt to make a living for herself at an 
auspicious moment. Captain, Stafford was coming 
out in a few hours to ride with her, and Dolly Abbot 
was “not in that act,” for one reason because she had 
no horse, and for another because she could not have 
ridden it had she possessed one. 

It was a straightforward, honest appeal for aid ; in 
fact it was exactly “like Jane,” and Helen read it 
with a kindly feeling of pity for the girl whom, she 
felt sure, was doing penance for some sins that were 
not her own. It went straight to the point without 
any attempt at fine writing, without prevarication, 
without verbosity. 

“Dear Lady Roydmore, — For my father’s sake, as 
he was very kind to you, will you try among your 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


159 


friends to get me some sort of a situation where I can 
live for a few years, while my money is wanted for 
something else? — Yours very truly, 

“Jane Herries/' 

“The necessity for Jane's finding a situation has 
arisen out of something to do with that wretched Flor- 
ence, Fm sure of that," Helen said impatiently, hand- 
ing the note to Mrs. Abbot as she spoke. “Poor 
child ! I wish I could help her, with all my heart. " 

‘ ‘Help her with all your head, " Mrs. Abbot answered, 
handing back the note. “ Have her to live with you, 
of course." 

Lady Roydmore shook her head and blushed. 

“ She wouldn't do it, Lou, even if I wished it, which 
I don't. I have had to carve my own career out of 
very hard materials, and I tell you candidly that a 
step-daughter would be in the way of my following 
out that career successfully. Besides, Jane Herries is 
too independent-spirited to accept what she would 
consider a favour at any one’s hands. I suppose I 
must run up to town and see if I can get her some- 
thing that she can take. I know any number of 
people, and I'm pretty popular. But it's a ghastly 
shame that that poor girl should have been cheated 
out of her money by that unscrupulous little gambler 
Mrs. Graves." 

Mrs. Abbot thought for a few moments, then she 
said, — 

“It will be harder for her — more painful to her, I 
mean — to be in a subordinate position, in a situation 
of any sort in London, where every one will know 
that she is the ‘ Honourable Jane Herries,' than it 
would be in the country, where her name would tell 
no tales, would it not ? ’' 

“ Infinitely harder, and more painful for me also." 

“Then let her come here and teach my children. 

I will give her a mother's care while she needs it. 
Have you anything to say against it, Helen ?" 

“Nothing," Lady Roydmore said slowly ; but as 


1 6o the honourable jane. 

she remembered Captain Stafford’s proximity, she felt 
very strongly indeed against the proposed plan. 

“ Then write, ask her to come at once while you 
are with us,” the warm-hearted woman went on. 
“ I want my children to be taught at home for the 
next three or four years, and I am sure Miss Herries 
will find them very easy to teach ; and her manners 
will be such an example to them. Do let it be so, 
Helen. Let her come.” 

“I can’t answer for her attainments, please to 
remember. She may be moderately well educated, 
or she may be as ignorant as your children are them- 
selves at present.” 

“Why, don’t you like my plan, Helen.?” Mrs. 
Abbot asked impulsively. 

‘ ‘ Indeed, pray don’t suppose for a moment that I 
am averse to it ; only I don’t want to foist her upon 
you without warning you that she may be utterly 
inefficient. ” 

“She will be such a nice companion for Dolly, 
too. I often feel how dull it must be for that poor 
girl out here in this place without a girl friend. ” 

“I don’t think she will find a girl friend in Jane 
Herries,” Lady Roydmore said sharply. “ However, 
I am bound not to stand in her way, so I will write 
to her if you wish it. ” 

Mrs. Abbot wished it very much indeed ; accord- 
ingly Helen wrote offering Jane the situation of gov- 
erness to Mrs. Abbot’s children, in the most unattrac- 
tive terms she could command. And Jane, it may 
as well be stated at once, accepted the offer. 

By the time the letter was written. Captain Stafford 
had arrived, and Helen’s chestnut was at the door, 
as was also Dolly, expending many caresses and 
words of endearment upon Captain Stafford’s horse. 

“Kiss me, you darling. Captain Stafford, make 
him kiss me like he did the other day, when I had 
been riding him,” Dolly cooed, just as Lady Royd- 
more appeared on the scene; “he is such a dear, 
satin-nosed darling. ” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, l6i 

“Take care he doesn’t bite you,” the satin-nosed 
darling’s master replied a little ungraciously. 

Helen knew nothing of that ride through the quiet 
lanes in the twilight which poor little nervous and 
fatigued Dolly had achieved through much schem- 
ing, and he had no great desire that the first account 
of it which Lady Roydmore received should be edited 
by Dolly. 

“Oh, he won’t bite me; I believe he remembers 
me. He carried me so quietly, I think he knew I 
should slip if he fidgeted ; for Thad nothing to hold 
on by but Captain Stafford’s shoulder, you know, 
Lady Roydmore.” 

Miss Dolly spoke in her most engagingly child- 
like tone, and with her most ingenuous manner, but 
Lady Roydmore felt the sting which both tone and 
manner affected to conceal. She reared her perfectly 
proportioned head up more proudly as she passed 
on to the side of her mare, where Captain Stafford 
was standing in readiness to give her a hand up, and 
never a sign did she make, by look or word, of hav- 
ing felt Dolly’s little poisoned pin prick. 

But Dolly had a great gift of spiteful pertinacity. 
It may be urged, in partial extenuation of her cultiva- 
tion and proficency in this quality, that the world 
had been a harsh teacher to her. She hated poverty, 
obscurity, and the necessity for exerting herself in 
the slightest degree for the performance of uncon- 
genial duties and work. These being her sentiments, 
she was in a continual state of friction about the 
poverty, obscurity and compulsorily useful tasks 
which were her daily portion. Her uncle and aunt 
were kind to her. They gave her a home, food 
and raiment as freely as if she had been their own 
daughter. But they sometimes expected her to 
look after the welfare of the baby, and to sew 
on buttons to some of the family garments. Dolly 
disliked babies as much as she did sewing on buttons; 
accordingly she considered herself as much misap- 
plied as is a piece of cloth of gold patched on to a 

II 


i 62 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


fustian coat. And this sense of being superior to 
and altogether incongruous with her surroundings 
made her spiteful to any one who interfered with 
what she fancied was a possibility of escaping from 
them. 

' Such a possibility was faintly defining itself before 
her mental vision now. Captain Stafford had shown 
her kindness and a good deal of courteous attention, 
and she was ignorant of the fact that he showed 
precisely the same meed of these things to. every 
woman and girl who pleased or attracted him at all. 
Dolly had pleased and attracted him up to a certain 
point. He liked his horses to bend their necks and 
step higher in proud gratitude when he petted them. 
This girl, who was scarcely more than a child, 
pleased him by her apt display of the quality he ap- 
preciated even in his horses. He was not in love 
with her, or fascinated by her, or even, as he would 
have termed it himself, “fetched"’ by her. But he 
liked her for her youth and her pretty looks, and her 
apparently artless exhibition of liking for himself. 
And Dolly, who was well read in that school of 
literature in which, youth and beauty in obscurity is 
eventually invariably rewarded by making a brilliant 
marriage with a man who has exhausted all the 
pleasures of court and camp , saw no reason why 
she should not fulfil the usual destiny by the aid of 
Captain Stafford. 

Lady Roydmore s appearance on the boards, and 
Lady Roydmore s calm resumption of what had evi- 
dently been a great intimacy, had been disgusting 
to Dolly. So disgusting and so exasperating, that 
to foil Lady Roydmore &came the first, and to sting 
and annoy Lady Roydmore the second, object of her 
life. Dolly had the rare but invaluable power of 
portraying the most exalted and pure emotions 
facially, simultaneously with the utterance of the 
most malignantly malicious words. She possessed 
also the gift of so burying or concealing the sting in 
language, that only the one who was meant to feel 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


163 

it knew that it was there. For example, neither Mrs. 
Abbot, nor Captain Stafford himself, felt that there 
was anything heinous or deserving of capital pun- 
ishment in her allusion to having leant upon his 
shoulder in order to maintain her balance on his 
horse. But Lady Roydniore knew that the allusion 
was carefully prepared, flavoured and seasoned 
for her special delectation, and though she was not 
a homicidally disposed womau, she would not have 
signed a petition to the Queen, praying for a respite, 
had Dolly’s slender neck been in danger of the gallows 
at that moment. 

She stood now on the lower step of the porch, her 
arms uplifted, her hands clasped behind her head, her 
fair little face looking rather sad as she watched, with 
wistful eyes and parted lips, the smart, neat way in 
which Lady Roydmore settled to the saddle, while 
Captain Stafford drew her habit into place. She had 
eliminated every trace of the envy and jealousy which 
was gnawing her soul from her expression. 

“ Pretty little Dolly ! poor little Dolly ! tt s deuced 
hard for her not to be able to come with us,” Harry 
Stafford thought, as he turned round to mount his 
own horse, and caught Dolly’s eyes fixed upon him 
pleadingly. 

It was such a lingering, loving glance, and it was 
given to him so stealthily, that for the first time if 
occurred to him that this “ child” had grown beyond 
childish things, and that some feeling, which he had 
not striven to irripart, but of which he was the cause, 
had assisted in developing her. He had no desire to 
encourage the feeling ; he did not reciprocate it. 
But he was only a man, and he could but look with 
extra kindness on the one who was expressing it for 
him. “She is unconscious that her face is betraying 
her, poor Dolly,” he thought, with chivalrous tender- 
ness,- and at the same moment Dolly was think- 
ing,— 

‘ ‘ Thai fetched him ! Lady Roydmore may abuse 
me to him as much as she likes to-day ; he won’t 


164 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


think bad things of me when he remembers that I 
looked like thal at him. ’’ 

“Good-bye, Dolly ! he said, lifting his deer-stalker. 

‘ ‘ I must give you a ride one day. ’ ' 

“You will have to be my master, then. I should 
so love to learn riding oi^you. " 

“All right ! so 1 will, ’ he cried, as he rode after 
Lady Roydmore, who had given her mare an ex- 
tremely uncalled-for and sharp cut with a stinging 
little whip. “ What in the world’s the matter, Helen 
That mare won’t stand any humbugging.” 

“Neither will I, Harry. What bad taste — to say 
nothing else — it is of you to let that girl play off her 
flirting tricks on you. You’ll be having the doctor’s 
assistant regarding you and speaking of you as a 
rival presently ! Miss Dolly never wastes time. She 
improves the shining hours with him every evening 
when the poor wretch is not in the surgery or on his 
rounds. She has been practising that look on him 
with good effect lately. ” 

“What 'look ? ” 

“The loving yet leaving look ; in other words, the 
one she favoured you with as we were starting.” 

“Poor little girl! she’s only down on her luck. 
You can’t expect a young girl like her to look hilar- 
ious when she sees her friends going off to enjoy 
themselves, and knows that she has to stay at home 
and be dull. ” 

“ Don’t class me among her friends, please, Harry. 
I make no pretence of being one. Let me advise 
you never to be lured into a correspondence with her. 
If you are you will have to repent it. Leave her to 
the doctor’s assistant. She may turn out well enough 
in her own sphere, unless she comes to grief in her 
efforts to get into a higher one. ” 

He felt that he was being scolded for a fault he had 
not committed, and treated as one who was unable 
to take care of himself If Helen had been a less 
perfect picture at the moment, or a less clever horse- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 165 

woman, he would have resented these things. As it 
was, he only said, — 

“You’re rather intolerant, but I suppose the nicest 
women are that sometimes. Do you know, I’ve 
heard a rumour to-day that everything has gone to 
the dogs at The Court, and that poor Geoffrey Graves 
is off his head.” 

“Oh, no, no, it can’t be so bad as that,” Helen 
protested. “ I have had a letter from Jane — a letter 
which has pained and puzzled me. I wanted to tell 
you all about it ; but she says nothing about the 
Graveses. She only says that she wants me to help 
her to find a situation where she can keep herself for 
a time, while her money is wanted for something 
else.” 

“ That girl work for her living, while that rascally 
sister of hers spends her money ! You won’t allow it, 
Helen.!* You must forbid it.” 

“I have no authority over her.” 

“ Her brother has. Roydmore will never permit 
it.” 

“ Roydmore is not only amiably selfish enough to 
permit anything that does not interfere with his own 
comfort, but he is going to be married to a girl whose 
father will control the purse. Jane has a will of her 
own when she thinks she is right, and I know her 
well enough to know that she will always think it 
right to sacrifice everything but her honour for her 
sister. If this that you have heard is true about poor 
Geoffrey Graves, Florence will want and will take all 
Jane can give her, and Jane will give it, and woe to 
the one who interferes between them. But I have 
something stranger still to tell you. Jane may come 
here to Plym Tor as governess to Mrs. Abbot’s chil- 
dren ; at any rate, Mrs. Abbot has made me write to 
Jane to-day offering her the situation.” 

His face grew cloudy and dark red under the in- 
fluence of a variety of emotions. 

‘ ‘ I thought Dolly Abbot taught her aunt’s chil- 
dren ? ” 


i66 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


'' She sits in the room with them for an hour or 
two of a morning, and reads novels, while the poor 
little wretchs flounder through columns of spelling, 
and stumble up and down rows of figures ; and when 
they don’t know these ‘lessons,’ as she calls them, 
she boxes their ears. It’s not an improving educa- 
tion this they are pursuing under Miss Dolly. Jane, 
at least, will never impart any knowledge to them 
that they would be better without.” 

“It will drive me mad to see Miss Herries in such 
a position,” he growled, ignoring the last side cut at 
Dolly. 

“ Perhaps under all the circumstances, it will be 
just as well you should not see her at all.” 

“But I shall know she’s there. That woman, her 
sister, ought to be shot.” 

“I grant you Florence is detestable and unworthy 
to the last degree, but Jane is neither a child nor a 
fool. As she has chosen to do this, neither you nor 
I have any’ right to bemoan ourselves about it. / 
can’t look upon her as belonging to me, consequently 
I feel it would be impertinent on my part, as well as 
futile, were I to interfere with her.” 

“You mean that it’s more impertinent and equally 
futile of me to express an opinion about her } ” 

“ I don’t think she has offered you much encour- 
agement to do so. From the night of that ball, when 
my husband was seized with his dying illness, Jane 
never mentioned you, nor seemed to think of 
you. ” 

“ Why should she have done either } ” he asked 
quickly, feeling the implied rebuke to either his vanity 
or presumption. 

“Oh! I don’t know; some girls would have al- 
lowed themselves to betray a little interest in a man 
who had shown his in them. But Jane has that en- 
viable, pliant kind of nature that enables her to con- 
centrate all her interest on the present. ” . 

“She’s right ! Let the past and the future go hang I 
The present is what wise men and women do well 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE JANE. 


167 


to make the most of — when it s pleasant as ours is, 
to-day, Helen. ” 

“As ours is to-day ; as all the past I have spent 
with you has been,'’ she said very softly. 



NEW EXPERIENCE. 


Miss Herries had not anticipated meeting with any 
very violent opposition from her responsible friends 
and relatives when she prepared to carry her resolu- 
tion of going out uncoihfortably into the world, and 
fighting the battle of life on an uninteresting field 
with inefficient weapons. Nor was she agreeably 
disappointed. They suffered her to gang her ain 
gait with very faint remonstrance, and no opposition 
whatever. Her brother told her “she was an idiot, 
and Florence was a rogue,” but he added that “un- 
less she liked to try and hit it off with Miss Levison 
when the latter should become his wife, and live with 
them, he had no other plan to propose for her. ” 

“ You’re very kind,” she had told Lord Roydmore, 
“but I should get so tired of trying to hit it off with 
any one all day and every day. It would be much 
harder work than teaching children, or reading aloud, 
or doing any of the things that governesses and com- 
panions have to do.” 

“ It’s a beastly shame of Florence to swindle you 
out of your money and leave you in such a hole,” 
Roydmore said warmly ; but he did not further press 
the point of her living with himself and his future 
wife. 

The rich old aunt from whom Jane had been 
taught to have “ expectations ” from her infancy de- 
stroyed these at one blow by writing the most lucid 
letter she had written for years, announcing that 
unless Jane retracted her sinful offer to Florence, and 


68 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


forswore all communication with that offender for 
ever, she (the aunt) would find it necessary to alter 
her will and exclude Jane’s name from it. There 
being no good result to be attained by answering such 
a letter as this Jane put it in the fire unanswered. 
Whereupon the old lady, who would have relented 
if Jane had gone humbly and pleaded for help and 
mercy, literally did as she had threatened, and cast 
about for a deserving successor to her contumacious 
niece, in the ranks of the cringing among her acquain- 
tances. 

Irresponsible people, who felt that whatever might 
betide her she could never devolve upon them in any 
way, gave her grave and earnest advice of all kinds 
by the ream and bushel. Some few, who were curi- 
ous to see how she would stand the tug of war be- 
tween herself and lowered fortunes, urged her to stand 
firm to her generous intention, and carry out her act 
of self-abnegation to the bitter end. But the majority 
were vehement and eloquent in their denunciations 
of the sister who could so quietly allow the sacrifice 
to be made for her. Jane listened to those who spoke, 
and read the letters (or at least portions of them) of 
those who wrote, and was so little influenced by their 
outpourings that she scarcely took the trouble to tell 
herself that they knew nothing at all about it, and 
that she was the best law to herself, and would be 
her own and only final court of appeal. 

There was nothing sentimental or romantic in her 
decision or in the motives which had made her arrive 
at it. There was a ghastly necessity for the man who 
was her sister’s husband to be kept in close confine- 
ment, watched, guarded and ministered to ; and in 
order that his wretched existence under these circum- 
stances should be made as endurable as possible, it 
was a first condition that liberal terms should be paid 
for him. There was no one else in either family ready 
or willing or able to assure these liberal terms. There- 
fore, naturally, Jane offered and gave them with all 
her heart and will. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


169 

The last evening that the sisters spent together at 
The Court was not at all sad for either of them. In- 
deed, they made rather merry over the possibilities 
that were before Jane when she became a member of 
the country doctor s household. 

“ If you were in a book instead of real life,” Flor- 
ence said, “ the wife, who is probably blowsy, dowdy, 
dull and unclothed as far as regards anything like 
decent dressing goes, would die, and you in due time 
would marry the doctor — a handsome, barbaric Eng- 
lishman, on whose ‘bold visage middle age has 
slightly set its signet sage. ’ Really, Jane, you might 
do worse. And then you could take poor Geoffrey 
in, and make your ‘ medicine-man " attend to him for 
nothing, and so save your three hundred a year.” 

“Ell think about it, and let you know when the 
wife dies and the ‘medicine-man’ prostrates himself 
at my feet. You’re not very ambitious for me, I 
observe.” 

“My dear Jane, your romantic scheme has put it 
out of any one’s power to be ambitious for you. I 
tell you candidly, though I — or rather poor Geoffrey 
— benefit by your act, / consider it the act of a luna- 
tic. I can’t think why you did it. / should never 
have blamed you if you hadn’t come to my rescue ; 
but now, as you have done it, it would be treacher- 
ous of you to hang back. You have forced me to 
rely upon you, and if you don’t justify that reliance, 
it will be treating me as a cat does a mouse.” 

“I won’t fail in the fulfilment of my part of the bar- 
gain, Flo,” the younger sister replied. Then they 
kissed each other, and went on their respective ways 
to bed. Jane with a slight feeling of chagrin at the 
cool way in which Florence was ready to relegate her 
(Jane) to the limbo of a lower social level, and a mo- 
notonously eventless future. Florence, with the ex- 
ultant conviction that on the morrow she would 
be freed from even the slight restraint which Jane’s 
presence imposed upon her. 

Lady Roydmore had brought her visit to the Abbots 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


170 

to a close, and had established herself for a short 
time at a Plymouth hotel. She had two reasons 
for doing this. The one was, that the sight of Dolly 
Abbot had become intolerable to her. The other was 
that she honestly felt that Jane would find less diffi- 
culty in adapting herself to her new niche if she were 
unfettered by her (Helen’s) presence, and unbiassed 
by her opinions, than she would if the reverse were 
the case. Accordingly, Miss Herries found herself 
a stranger among strangers, and rather liked the situa- 
tion. The girl had a wholesome love of change and 
novelty, a natural craving for fresh experiences, and 
a good deal of curiosity as to the reason why Helen 
had buried herself alive in a country place, far from 
her favourite haunts, and quite out of the route (Jane 
believed) of any of her favourite haunters. This lat- 
ter little mystery would be more satisfactorily cleared 
up in Lady Roydmore’s absence than in her presence, 
therefore Miss Herries neither felt nor feigned disap- 
pointment when she learnt that her stepmother was 
gone. 

It was not a brilliant family circle, that in which 
Miss Herries found herself so strangely settled. 
Neither was it an exceptionally dull one, as country 
middle-class family circles go. The doctor himself 
was a liberal reader of journals, daily and weekly, of 
every shade of opinion on other besides medical and 
scientific subjects. Additionally he was unselfishly 
desirous of giving those around him the benefit of the 
results of his dips into truth, fiction, fact, fancy, start- 
ling medical discoveries, and critiques, or novelties in 
Art, Literature and the Drama, in which latter, by the 
way, there was frequently a lack of truth, factor fancy. 
In short he was well up in current history, was aloud, 
lively talker, and was further blessed with the bold, 
breezy manner which often accompanies a magnifi- 
cently healthy physique. He led such an open-air 
existence, that when he did come into the house he 
seemed to bring in some of the atmosphere of the 
moors with him. Altogether he looked — Miss Herries 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


171 

thought — far more like a hearty, sporting country 
squire than like the village doctor he was. Jane liked 
him at once. Liked him for his vigorous personality 
and indomitable, bright-hearted good humour, which 
had the rare quality of being weather-proof. If the 
sun shone. Doctor Abbot smiled and beamed under 
it. If the clouds opened their sluice-gates, and poured 
out their torrents in the way that is peculiar to the 
beautiful west, he smiled and beamed in precisely the 
same way. Nothing ruffled, nothing depressed, noth- 
ing made him irritable. Not even when he came 
back hungry, wet and tired from a round which had 
lasted several hours, to find Dolly in one of her most 
perplexingly and insolently disagreeable moods to- 
wards her aunt, not even then would the light-hearted 
husband and uncle permit himself to see any but the 
sunny side of either woman, a course of procedure 
which made his equally easy-going wife bless the day 
she had married him, and caused his niece, who had 
something of the fretful porcupine in her, to despise 
him for the lack of that chivalrous discernment which 
should have made him her advocate, and his wife’s 
accuser and j udge. 

As for Mrs. Abbot, she was, as has been said, easy- 
going, warm-hearted, and only too happy to give and 
take every bit of pleasure that could be given to those 
with whom she came in contact, or taken from her 
surroundings. There were no hidden depths in her 
kindly nature, no angles to be approached carefully 
by those over whom she had dominion. Jane’s sac- 
rifice ceased to appear to herself in the light of one, 
as she assimilated herself with these people rapidly, 
with the unerring conviction that, whatever their 
manner might be, it was “real mahogany, not 
veneer. ” 

The assistant, Mr. Barker, about whom Lady Royd- 
more had spoken so contemptuously with regard to 
Dolly, was a pleasant element in the household, for 
he was young and good-looking, and could sing 
many of Moore’s Irish melodies with much taste and 


172 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


cultivation, and quite as if he meant them. Like a 
true son of Erin, whenever his eyes loved to look 
upon any one, his heart quickly followed, and it so 
happened that his eyes loved to look upon Miss Her- 
ries as soon as he saw her. Hitherto he had found 
Miss Dolly Abbot a very pleasant relaxation after a 
hard day’s work ; but Dolly's little silent ways and 
wordless lures, and jerky little semi-petulant, semi- 
playful, flirting speeches, seemed ungraceful and 
rather odd than enjoyable when contrasted with 
Jane’s fearless, frank, high-bred, unsuspicious, unde- 
signing manner of treating him in common with the 
others. He had no private property, and no particu- 
lar professional prospects, but there seemed to him to 
be nothing either rash or presumptuous in determining 
to lay siege to the heart of the pretty governess with- 
out delay. Under the intoxicating influence of her 
eyes, he saw his chances of eventually getting into 
partnership with Dr. Abbot double themselves and 
come nearer ; and Dolly noticed the signs of this in- 
toxication, and saw at once the source from which 
he drew the draught that caused it. 

Dolly had no desire to capture and permanently 
cage this Irish bird who flew so gaily from tree to 
tree. She had much bigger game in view, but until 
the big game came within range of her gun, it was 
fine sport and good practice to try and wing Mr. Bar- 
ker. Until Miss Herries came, there had been no 
difficulty in the way of her going after her bird when- 
ever it pleased her. He was always ready to sit still 
and be fired at, always willing to take his wounds to 
her to have them dressed. He found Dolly quite as 
good a pastime as she found him, but she was mis- 
taken in supposing that she could hold him in reserve, 
and pick him up for better for worse permanently 
by-and-by if she so pleased. 

Dolly began to feel that her judgment in this matter 
was in error when Miss Herries arrived. The new- 
comer had the overwhelming charm of novelty in 
addition to those of generous youth, unusual beauty 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


173 

and those touches of breeding which only those who 
are to the manner born are blessed with. No wonder 
that the inflammable nature and easily ignited heart 
of the young Irish doctor succumbed to a personality 
that was a revelation to him. There was on the face 
of it nothing either presumptuous or foolish in this 
abrupt surrender to a girl who was apparently on 
precisely the same social platform as himself. The 
sight of her the first night, the thought of her and the 
sense of her during the week that followed; stirred his 
heart to hidden and hitherto unsuspected depths of 
feeling, and his mind to the formation of a good 
resolve. 

This latter was that he would work, read, study, 
practise, experimentalise without ceasing for the next 
six months. By the end of that time, if ‘‘will” was 
the potent factor in a man’s life, which he had been 
taught to consider it, he would have become invalu- 
able professionally to Dr. Abbot, and also dangerous 
as a possible rival. Further, he would also have be- 
come essential to the happiness of Miss Herries. 

Both the resolve and the promise of joy which he 
made to himself should he fulfil the resolve became the 
brightest lights that had ever illuminated his pathway, 
and in their radiance he felt himself to be a man who 
need not shrink from putting any fate to the touch 
and facing any rival. 

Miss Herries got through her duties in a way that 
her employers were good enough to say were very 
satisfactory. But this kindly verdict did not deceive 
the girl herself. She knew quite well that her pretty 
presence and graceful ways did not compensate the 
children whom she was professing to teach for her 
lack of method and inability to impart even such 
knowledge as she had. A thousand things distracted 
her attention when it ought to have been concen- 
trated on her pupils and their work. The sound of 
the rippling river, or of a gun going off in the adjoin- 
ing woods and covers, would send her thoughts flying 


174 the honourable jane, 

off to shooting-luncheons and water-picnics, and to 
those who had shared these delights with her during 
those few brief months when, as the Honourable Jane 
Herries, she had been asked to countless entertain- 
ments of the' sort in town and country. The morning 
papers, too, distracted her a good deal, especially 
that column in the Daily Telegraph in which she 
read of what is doing in London day by day. Alto- 
gether, it must be admitted that there was so little of 
the heroic martyr about Jane that her self-imposed 
work palled upon her painfully, and she was longing 
to escape from it before she had been in Dr. Abbot’s 
family a week. 


CHAPTER Vfll . 

‘ ‘ GOOD-NIGHT, AND GO ! ” 

Helen had declared to herself, and had tried hard to 
believe her own declaration, that in going into Ply- 
mouth and taking up her abode at an hotel which 
faced the Hoe, she had been actuated solely and 
wholly by a desire to give herself the benefit of sea 
breezes, and to make herself acquainted with apart of 
the country of whose beauties she had heard much. 
That Captain Stafford should be quartered there was 
“a coincidence unquestionably, but one which had not 
influenced her in the least,” she told herself, and she 
implied the same thing to him the first time he came 
to call upon her. 

“ I used to hear my mother, who was a Plymouth 
woman, talk so much about Mount Edgecombe, and 
the Devils Point, and the Tamar and St. Germains 
rivers, that I have always been longing to see them. 
I may never have such an opportunity again, for 
when once I get back to London, Devonshire will 
seem such a very long way off,” she said to him ; and 
he replied, — 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


175 

“ You’re right ; the Holy Land seems nearer than 
Devonshire when one's in town. It s odd, though, 
that London doesn’t seem far off when one’s in Devon- 
shire. 1 am constantly running up. I thought of 
goingmp to-morrow or the next day, in fact.” 

She felt disappointed, but would not betray herself. 

“ If he wants me to ask him not to go while I am 
here, he will find himself mistaken,” she thought, as 
she said quietly, — 

“ Do go ! I want you to do a little commission 
for me. Choose a wedding present for Jack. You 
have such exquisite taste, and you are sure to select 
something a man would like. ” 

He had not the most remote intention of running 
up to town either to-morrow or at all just then, but 
he wanted her to understand that he was not going to 
let her appropriate him. 

“ When is Roydmore to be married .? ” 

“ I don’t know the day, but very soon now. Jane 
will be able to tell me when I see her. I am keeping 
away from her just at first, in order to let her get ac- 
customed to her new sphere. I should be a disturb- 
ing influence to the poor dear child.” 

“ I think it’s an iniquitous thing that the ‘poor 
dear child ’ has been allowed by her family to make 
such a little goose of herself. ” 

“ She has a very strong will, as I have told you 
before.” 

“ Roydmore ought to be ashamed of himself to per- 
mit one of his sisters to quixotically cut her throat in 
order to smooth the path of one of the most worth- 
lessly selfish women that ever stepped.” 

“ You may abuse Florence as much as you like — I 
don’t care for her a bit more than you do — but you 
shall not blame Roydmore. I believe Jane told him 
that she wouldn’t let him do anything for her. The 
fact is, Jane would have felt she was doing a mean 
thing if she had allowed herself to be recompensed 
for her goodness to her sister.” 

“ I hear she is finding the bed she has made any- 


176 the honourable jane, 

thing but one of roses. Governessing isn’t such fun 
as she fancied it would be, poor girl.’’ 

“ Ah, how have you heard that, Harry ? ” she asked 
quickly. 

“ How.? Oh, I have heard it. A fellow forgets 
where he picked up a bit of gossip. Don’t you think, 
as the day is so fine, we had better go for a stroll and 
have a look at the old place .? ” 

“ He has either seen that little cat Dolly, or she 
has written to him,” Lady Roydmore thought ; but 
she would not give Dolly fictitious importance in his 
estimation by wording her suspicion. 

“ It’s strange that you should have met any one 
who takes interest enough in her already to have 
detected that she is disillusioned. Certainly I will go 
for a stroll. Can’t we go to Mount Edgecombe and 
stroll there .? ” 

“ The Park is not open to-day ; but if you like I’ll 
take you to one of the rummest little fishing villages 
you ever dreamt of. Are you good for a four mile 
walk .? If you are, we will go to Cawsand.” 

Helen hated the prospect of walking four miles, 
but she loved the idea of having him all to herself for 
that distance of lovely, lonely country road. Love 
conquered hate, as it always should do, and tinged 
her tone with something like enthusiasm as she 
said, — 

“ Delighted ! Cawsand is another place that has 
been described to me so graphically and vividly by 
my mother that it is as clear cut as a cameo in my 
mind. Isn’t it united to a Kingsand, and doesn’t it 
revolt at its union, and give itself airs of superiority ; 
and doesn’t Kingsand do precisely the same .? ” 

“I am not up to its traditions, but I’ll tell you any- 
thing you like about it,” he answered laughingly. 
“ My dear woman, you don’t propose walking four 
miles in those boots, do you .? ” 

She bent her head and surveyed her beautifully 
slender ankles and exquisitely shod feet. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


177 

My boots are perfection in shape and fit. What 
fault have you to find with them, Sir Critic? 

‘ ‘ Only that the heels are so high that your insteps 
will be dislocated when you get to the bottom of the 
first hill ; then I shall have to carry you. The office 
will be a proud and happy one, of course, but I think 
we should enjoy each other’s company more if we 
bore our respective burdens ourselves.” 

“ I haven’t anything lower heeled, and I am not 
going to make my feet look hideous in flat-soled boots 
to please any man,” she laughed out, and the slim, 
graceful feet looked so pretty as they bore her from 
the room, that he felt as if he would very much like 
to have to carry their owner in his arms over — say, a 
few yards of lovely, lonely country road. 

They found themselves by-and-byin a waggonette 
which was engaged in the service of the transmission 
of the public from Cremyl, when they landed on the 
Cornish coast, down — or rather up and down — to 
Cawsand. Their charioteer was reckless and skil- 
ful. 

He knew his horses, and they knew their road and 
their own ability to keep their knees from coming in 
contact with it. There was something delicious to 
both Helen and Harry Stafford in this rushing pro- 
gress that they made. It checked all attempts at 
consequent conversation. It gave them the pleasur- 
able sensation of being together without thought for 
the future. At times, indeed, when their breath was 
not taken away by an unorganised rush down a preci- 
pice, or a spasmodic scramble up one, it gave them 
time to — think. 

At length they reached the picturesque little fishing 
village which was their bourne, and as soon as they 
reached it, before they gave themselves time to ex- 
plore its quaint and devious ways, they made arrange- 
ments for defeating their own objects in coming here 
to explore it by taking a boat and^ over to 

the breakwater. There, with wide-winged seagulls 
swooping around them, and innumerable little black 
12 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


178 

“divers’' standing about in the water on their heads 
at brief intervals for the amusement of the strange 
human beings, Helen declared her desire of staying 
for a few hours. This desire necessitated sending 
back the boat to Cawsand for luncheon. As soon as 
the boat was out of reach of their hailing her, the 
irony of fate decreed that the wind should begin to 
blow vigorously, the rain to descend in torrents, the 
sky to darken, the waves to begin to lash themselves 
into a preliminary rage, and the seagulls to make for 
the headland with all speed, as they tilled the air with 
those mournfully ominous cries which are the sure 
precursors of a storm. 

The lighthouse afforded them shelter from the piti- 
less downpour and the raging blasts. “But how 
would it be when night fell } ” each asked silently of 
him and herself. Unless the storm ceased, no open 
boat could possibly come to their rescue, and even 
should one do so. Lady Roydmore had far too great 
a horror of the mighty ocean in a state of turmoil 
to trust herself upon its treacherous waves. 

With all her heart she disliked the position, and 
regretted having helped to place herself in it. She 
saw that her companion, though he was keenly alive 
to the discomforts she might be called upon to endure 
during their detention in the lighthouse, and sincerely 
sorry for her, was at the same time consumedly an- 
noyed on his own account The tale of their involun- 
tary isolation from their kind for perhaps a night 
only, perhaps (odious thought) for a longer period, 
was one that would surely leak out, especially as he 
ought to be on duty at six o’clock the next morning. 
The story would leak out, and he would be chaffed 
about a woman he still liked too well to relish the idea 
of being compelled to listen to any light innuendoes 
about her ; while she — and this possibility stung him 
more — would inevitably be whispered and gossipped 
about as incautious, indiscreet and fast for having 
permitted herself to be placed in such a predicament 
with a man who was not her acknowledged lover, 


TtJE HONOURABLE JANE. 


179 

and yet with whom her name had been coupled for 
many years. , 

As the hours went by, and, they saw no chance of 
release, hunger and thirst began to assert themselves. 
The lighthouse keeper, on whose hospitality they had 
so involuntarily thrust themselves, made them heartily 
welcome to such provisions as he had, and lamented 
that the fresh stores which he had expected this day 
would now not be forthcoming. Hunger and the fear 
of hurting her host's feelings made Helen swallow 
bread that was slightly off colour, pork that was so 
fat it made her sick to look at it, and water that had 
become brackish. They made as comfortable a couch 
as they could for her on a locker up against the side 
of the fireplace, piling up every kind of rug, pilot-coat 
and blanket that could be found in the place. And 
here Helen sat through the v'aning hours of the day, 
leaning her head against the unresponsive side of the 
chimney-piece, listening to the rush and roar of wind 
and wave, and wishing, oh ! so heartily, that she 
could lay it instead against Harry Stafford’s shoulder, 
with the knowledge that he liked having it there, and 
sleep out this “great gap of time” till the storm 
abated. 

“The worst of it will be over at sundown,” the 
lighthouse keeper told her reassuringly. “Some 
steamer might come in then, and they would signal 
to her to send a boat to take the lady off, ” a prospect 
at which Helen had to feign to be pleased, but from 
which she shrank in terror, as she pictured herself in 
an open boat, being tossed across the waves in the 
darkness, which would be their portion after sundown. 

Captain Stafford had been wandering about the 
lighthouse restlessly for an hour when the darkness 
fell suddenly, as it does on a stormy night in late 
autumn, and he knew that he must go to her and 
make' her comprehend that where they were they- 
must remain till the morning. He had not the slight- 
est inclination to flirt or sentimentalise with her this 
day. He was too sincerely sorry for the awkwardness 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


l8o 

of this act, in which they were both forced to take a 
part, to have any hankering after a resuscitation of 
the love-making of the past ; and she, in spite of the 
longing she felt to be sympathised with and soothed 
by him, did not, to do her justice, make the faintest 
effort to tempt him. 

“ We must make up our minds to be shut up here . 
till to-morrow now ; it’s so dark that I can’t see my 
hand when I hold it out at arm’s length. I wouldn’t 
have had this happen for the world. Poor Helen ! ” 

He spoke so kindly, and his eyes, as he bent down 
to rearrange a rug round her shoulders, had such a 
warm, tender light in them that she might have been 
forgiven if she had mistaken these things for signs of 
a rekindled fire of passion in his heart ; but she knew 
that the fire was burnt out, and she would not deceive 
herself. 

“lam fortunate in one thing at least,” she said. 
“There is no one to scold me for my escapade. 
People, if they hear of it, may sit in the seat of the 
scornful over me, or may laugh at me, but there is no 
one to scold me.” 

“I should be awfully savage if people did either 
one or the other,” he said hotly. “ After all, we are 
not omnipotent ; none but a fool could suppose for 
an instant that we either of us ordered the winds and 
waves to arise.” 

“Perhaps no one will ever hear of it,” she said 
soothingly. It gratified her to see that he thought 
more of her, and feared more for her, than he did of 
and for himself, and with a throb of pleasure she felt 
that he respected her. She was conscious of having 
done many things with regard to her treatment of 
both Lord Roydmore and Mr. Wyndham of which he 
disapproved, and which had made him angry and 
bitter with her at one time. She was conscious, too, 
that she had shown her love for him with desperate 
indiscretion many a time and oft. But he held her 
guiltless of having been similarly indiscreet with re- 
gard to any other man ! So at least there was this 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE JANE. l8i 

balm in Gilead for her ; if he loved her no longer with 
the hot, exhausting passion of old days, when the 
sight and the sound and the sense of her made his 
earthly paradise, at least he liked and respected her 
sufficiently to be intensely sensitive where her reputa- 
tion was concerned. 

“Perhaps no one will ever hear of it,” she repeated ; 
“and even if the most is made of it, it amounts to 
nothing very terrible after all. No one who knows 
either of us would believe for a moment that we were 
in collusion with the elements to condemn ourselves 
to such hours of discomfort as we are enduring. 
Don’t let what may be said distress you, Harry; it 
can’t hurt me, and I know it’s only of me that you are 
thinking.” 

Her trust in his generosity and chivalry touched 
him. 'Whatever there might be of diplomacy — or, 
as he termed it, “ humbug ” — about her, he knew that 
she meant what she said, when she declared her be- 
lief that it was of her fair name only he was thinking 
in this dilemma. 

“ I wish my sister-in-law Lily had not gone. She 
would have helped you to pull this business through 
if any confounded talk is raised about it.” 

“ My dear Harry ! ” she raised herself up, and was 
rejuvenated wonderfully by the sudden wave of angry 
pride which swept over her, “ please don’t imagine 
that I am on such insecure ground that my footsteps 
may falter, and I may tumble unless I am held up 
by your sister-in-law. You are bowing the knee a 
little too lowly in your desire to appease or square 
Mrs. Grundy, when you suggest that your sister-in- 
law might have been my social shield and buckler 
had she been still in Plymouth. Moreover, she was 
a stranger here. Whose opinion would she have in- 
fluenced } No one’s, as far as I can see, but Miss 
Abbots — the girl you call ‘ Dolly.’” 

He sat thoughtfully twisting one end of his well- 
waxed moustache for a few moments, then he said, — 

“ That girl does contrive to find out things about 


82 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


most people in the neighbourhood, whether she knows 
them or not. Yet she’s not in the swim ; poor little 
girl, she doesn’t get much fun out of society here. ” 

Helen’s eyes put on their haughtiest expression for 
an instant, before she veiled them with her lashes. 

“ Her sources of information are not interesting to 
me, and are probably not such as we could discuss, ” 
she said coldly. ‘ ‘ I can believe that she holds a 
subtle spell for the amorous youth of the neighbour- 
hood ; the youth that sees a Duchess in every Dul- 
cinea, and is ready to fight windmills for a Blow- 
salind. Why wonder that she is well posted up in 
the scandals of the social set in which she has no 
place I can guess how and from whom she gets her 
information.” 

“ Give me your guess, and I’ll tell you if you are 
near the truth,” he laughed carelessly. It rather 
amused him to see that Helen, who could command 
him about matters in regard to which Dolly Abbot 
would have to wheedle or supplicate him, was permit- 
ting herself to feel and evince jealousy of the latter 
young lady. More for the sake of continuing to dis- 
tract Helen’s attention from the discomforts of her 
present situation than with any idea of championing 
Dolly, he said, — 

“ I wish you would give the reins to your real 
good-nature, and give that little girl a good time 
while you’re in Plymouth instead of regarding her as 
an accomplished, hardened and unscrupulous girl. 
It’s breaking a butterfly on the wheel to cut at her 
with your practised sword.” 

“ She is a hybrid, half-butterfly and half-wasp, and 
she has taught you how to sting ; that, if you want 
to know the truth, is the reason why I turn what you 
are pleased to call my practised sword against her. 
Don’t speak of her any more, please, Harry, it’s a 
despicable thing that a thought of Miss Dolly Abbot 
should get mingled up with the thoughts that the 
winds and waves are giving me for my disturbance 
to-night.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


183 

She put out both her hands to him as she spoke, 
with a pathetic air of pleading weariness. He bent 
his head down and touched them with his lips for a 
moment, then looked up suddenly with a deep flush 
on his face, and said, — 

“ I wish to Heaven I could be sure of always feel- 
ing like this ” 

“ But you can’t feel sure, or rather, you do feel 
sure that it won’t last beyond the hour,” she inter- 
rupted hastily. “ Go now, Harry, before we have 
either of us time to say anything more silly. And do 
let me hear, as soon as it s daylight, if we have any 
chance of getting off this dreadful place.” 

“ You look so awfully uncomfortable and desolate 
that I feel like a brute for leaving you. Waking or 
sleeping, I shall be thinking of you the whole night, 
Helen. ” 

“ I am a terrible incubus to you, I know that.” 

“You are determined to misunderstand me to- 
night. ” 

“Ah, no ! I understand both you and myself so 
well, that I say again good-night and — gOy Harry.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

BITTER RECOLLECTIONS. 

The morning after the storm broke with what those 
who had suffered from the latter felt to be irritating 
balminess and splendour. The winds were no longer 
out with the waves at play. The sun shone out from 
a cloudless sky of blue. The climatic influences 
entered into and stirred all the holiday blood in the 
inhabitants of Plymouth and the region round. The 
town-bound people chartered drags, waggonettes, 
char-a-hancs, and every other kind of wheeled locomo- 
tive agent they could get hold of, and made excur- 
sions into the country ; the country-chained ones 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


184 

visited the town. Lady Roydmore and Captain Staf- 
ford being picked up gaily by the boat which they 
had chartered on the previous day, and sent for their 
luncheon, with which it never returned, were rowed 
over to Cawsand about midday, chastened and sub- 
dued in spirit, and considerably dilapidated as to their 
appearance from their sojourn on the breakwater. 
The donkey’s ears of velvet in Helen’s hat were so 
sodden with spray, that they fell forward limply, giv- 
ing a grotesque, not to say an intoxicated, effect to 
the hat they were intended to adorn. Her collar and 
cuffs had been saturated with spray, and were con- 
sequently crumpled as to form, and dingy as to colour. 
The same remark applied to Captain Stafford’s throat 
and wrist bands of fine linen, which resembled damp 
rags. His moustache, out of which all the Pomade 
Hongroise had been soaked, fell about his upper lip 
untidily, much as a Skye terrier’s fringe does when 
its owner is wet. All the polish had been taken off 
their smart boots. Marks of weariness and vexation 
of spirit were stamped in unmistakable characters 
all over their forms and faces, in fact, and the wisest 
course they could have pursued would have been to 
have got into an excursion steamer, hidden themselves 
in a cabin, and gone straight back to Plymouth with 
as little delay. 

But instead of doing this, some perverse spirit seized 
upon Captain Stafford, and made him say, — 

“It’s the open day at Mount Edgecombe. We 
may never have a chance of seeing the place together 
again ; what do you say to walking through the park 
by the coast to Cremyl .? It’s too early for many 
people to be about, so we needn’t mind looking rather 
shady as to our clothes, and the walk will freshen 
you up.” 

“Isn’t my hat a little too awful.? and my gloves 
are full of sand and salt water ; see ! I can’t get 
them on,” she answered, holding up bits of torn, 
damp and wrinkled kid for his inspection. 

“Never mind the gloves; your hands are pretty 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


185 

enough to do without any other covering than your 
rings. We shall get down to Cremyl about two 
o'clock, and then we will have some luncheon at the 
little inn there, and cross in the steamer to the Admirals 
Hard afterwards. Then I will put you into a four- 
wheeler, which will conceal you from the eye of man 
until you reach the sanctuary of your hotel. It 
would be a thousand pities to miss seeing the place, 
as it is open to-day.” 

“Do you really wish me to come? I am so ap- 
pallingly untidy ! ” 

“What does that matter? Fve already seen you 
at your worst, you know, and we are not likely to 
meet any one we know.” 

“Then I will come, and enjoy it without thinking 
of the hopeless figure I cut,” she said, surrendering 
even her vanity to his wishes. 

They loitered about on the sands, amongst the rocks 
and pools of water, for an hour, and then, having 
rendered themselves still more untidy by reason of 
having inadvertently slipped up to their knees in salt 
water, they started under a brilliant sun, that illumi- 
nated every defect in their toilets, for the walk round 
the coast road to Cremyl. 

The day had dawned with equal warmth and 
brightness at Plym Tor. The windows were thrown 
wide open as Dr. Abbot’s family sat at breakfast. 
The song of birds, the hum of insects, the rain- 
refreshed sweet scents of late roses, mignonette and 
jasmine came pouring into the room, calling them out 
into the open air with a subtlety of entreaty that 
appealed to each one of them. The children spoke 
sorrowfully of the hardness of their fate in having to 
waste such a morning over lessons. Doctor Abbot 
declared that it would be an offence against nature 
not to go out and enjoy it to the full on such a day. 
Mrs. Abbot echoed his sentiments as usual. Dolly 
grumbled that it “ was as well to sit in the house and 


1 86 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

darn stockings and read as it was to do these things 
in the garden alone.” And Mr. Barker reminded his 
senior that there were no special cases which required 
his (Barker s) attention this day. Jane was the only 
one of the party who refrained from throwing out 
hints of a desire for a change from the daily routine. 
But perhaps not one of them yearned more desper- 
ately than she did for such a change ; for a lapse, how- 
ever brief, into the old dolce far niente existence under 
a cloudless sky. 

“ Why shouldn’t all the young people make a day 
of it in the open ? ” Dr. Abbot suggested. ‘ ‘ They 
can take the waggonette and take a hamper, and 
make a picnic of it. Barker can drive them ; I don’t 
want him.” 

The proposition was hailed with enthusiasm by 
every one but Dolly. She felt that a picnic consist- 
ing of three children, two girls and only one young 
man would be a weary thing in the heart of the 
country, more especially as she was not the girl 
whom the young man was most disposed to affect. 

“How tired we shall be of each other before the 
day is over,” she said; “we shall only have the same 
things to say to one another out on the moor by a 
river as we have been saying to each other in the 
house for the last fortnight.” 

“Why go to Dartmoor.? Why not let us go to 
Mount Edgecombe .? You are sure to meet some of 
your Plymouth friends there. Miss Abbot.” 

A delicate pink spot rose to Dolly’s cheeks, and 
she rewarded Mr. Barker for his suggestion with a 
smile that had the attraction of being directed to him 
in a secretive sort of way, as if she were anxious that 
no one else should see it and its meaning. 

“A capital idea! Does it please you, Miss 
Herries .? ” 

“It pleases me more than I can say,” Jane said 
heartily. 

“You won’t make us pick ferns and wild flowers 
as we go through the park, will you, Miss Herries ? ” 


THE HO JVO C/E ABLE /A HE. 187 

one of her pupils asked; “one lady who taught us 
did, and made us tell her their names, and would 
teach us all about their petals and stamens and fam- 
ilies ! We didn’t like it ; we wanted a holiday.” 

“I’ll promise not to instruct you one bit,” Jane 
laughed. “ I want a holiday too, and I know noth- 
ing about flowers and ferns, beyond that they are 
lovely and sweet.” Then she thought of the flower 
lesson Captain Stafford had given her on the occasion 
of their first meeting — of the myrtle and jasmine she 
had plucked from her own bouquet to make a button- 
hole for him on the night of the memorable ball — 
of the few beautiful minutes she had spent with him 
behind the palms in the conservatory — of the words 
he had said then, and of that one- kiss ! 

As the remembrance of this last rushed into her 
mind, the happy smile of present contentment faded 
from her lips and eyes, the blood rushed up in a rich 
wave of colour over her face and throat, till she 
looked “like a queen of roses,” Barker thought; 
“like a big peony,” Dolly said to herself contemp- 
tuously. A deep, angry feeling of having been trifled 
with and thrown aside by the man who had won her 
so easily and lightly, possessed her. She could 
almost have struck the lips which he had pressed for 
nothing more than the gratification of an idle passing 
fancy. For one moment she prayed that she might 
never see him again. The next she longed to do so, 
in order that she might show him that she too could 
be careless, callous, forgetful and contemptuous of 
him, as he had been of her. And some at least of 
these thoughts were patent to one of the group round 
the breakfast-table. 

“She's thinking of some one she is fond of, and 
who has treated her badly,” the astute Dolly thought. 
“I wonder if it’s Captain Stafford.? He knows Lady 
Roydmore so well, that of course he must know her 
step-daughter. ” 

Her reflections were interrupted at this juncture by 
her aunt saying, — 


:88 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“Come and help me to pack the hamper, Dolly ; 
you ought to start soon and have a long day there/' 

“ I have to do something to my hat ; if I stay to 
pack the hamper I shall not be ready.” 

“Shall I trim your hat.?” Jane asked, and Dolly 
surveyed her coolly for a moment or two before she 
answered, — 

“No, thanks, I like my own taste best. Captain 
Stafford says I should make my fortune as a lady- 
milliner if I only had free scope.” 

As a matter of fact, Captain Stafford had ncA'^er said 
this or anything equivalent to it, but by her little 
flight of imagination Dolly made the discovery she 
wanted to make. At this casual, easy, taking-him- 
for-granted mention of her hero, all the colour ebbed 
from Miss Herries’ face as quickly as it had risen ; 
even ’her lips grew pale and quivered ominously, 
while the curious flickering light of mingled anger and 
jealousy came into her eyes. Her hand, too, as it 
rested on the table, playing with a bunch of mig- 
nonette which one of the children had given to her, 
shook for an instant. The next she had risen, and 
was following Mrs. Abbot out of the room with the 
words, — 

“Let me help you with the hamper.” 

“And let me help too ; then I shall be able to save 
you the trouble of unpacking it, for I shall know where 
to find everything,” Mr. Barker pleaded eagerly ; and 
Jane, who was feeling sore and sorry for herself, 
granted the plea, and suffered herself to be soothed 
for the time by the attentions of a man for whom she 
had not a particle of feeling beyond this, that he was 
better than nothing for the hour. 

The re-arrangement of Dolly's hat did not absorb 
her long. When it was bent into a more becoming 
shape, and re-decorated to her satisfaction, she still 
had time to write a note which contained the follow- 
ing sentence among many others: — 

“I told you a little about our new governess the 
other day. She begins to find it much pleasanter 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


189 

here than she did at first. Uncle’s assistant is a very 
good-looking young man, and she is very proud of his 
attentions. I suppose she hasn’t been used to many 
from men, or her head would not be so completely 
turned by his.” 

This note, when she had written and sealed it, she 
addressed to, — 

“Captain H. Stafford, V.C. the th,” and she took 

care to post it herself presently when they were 
passing through the village. 

The waggonette held them all comfortably. Mr. 
Barker was the driver, and his obvious anxiety that 
Miss Herries should occupy the seat by his side might 
have been embarrassing to the girl if her head and 
heart had not both been full to the brim of thoughts 
of that other man who had stamped his image on her 
soul as her hero for life. She felt ashamed of herself 
for being so weak as to permit herself to feel shattered 
because a girl whom she had instinctively from the 
first felt to be vain, shallow and false (if nothing 
worse), had spoken of him in tones of assured famil- 
iarity. It hurt her pride and delicacy ; it mortified 
her till she felt as if crushed to the earth ; it angered 
her till she lost all power of concentrating herself on 
the objects of the hour, that she should be jealous of 
Dolly. Jealous ! of a girl for whom she had one of those 
intuitive aversions which sensitive and warm-natured 
people are apt to conceive, and which are almost 
invariably correct and justified by after events. Jealous 
on her own account, and jealous for him. It galled 
her to the quick to think that he had in any way, 
however slight, given this girl the right or the power 
to speak of him in her simpering, boastful way, as 
though he and she were on a footing that was not 
comprehended of the others. These feelings intensi- 
fied themselves, and made the earlier portion of this 
happy holiday a grim thing indeed to Jane, when 
they reached the post-office. For there Miss Dolly 
commanded that a halt should be made, and when she 
had leisurely descended she came round to the front 


190 • the honourable jane, 

of the waggonette, with the letter held in such a way 
that Jane could not help seeing to whom it was ad- 
dressed. 

“You don’t happen to have a postage stamp in 
your pocket, do you ” Dolly asked artlessly, screen- 
ing the letter from the observation of the lynx-eyed 
children ; “it would save me the trouble of going in 
if you had one.” 

Miss Herries took out her purse and extracted a 
stamp from it, which Dolly carefully affixed to the 
letter. Then she got into the waggonette again, with 
the pleased conviction that she had sent her arrow very 
close to the bull’s-eye this time. 

For a time after this incident, Jane was tongue-tied. 
Her mind was so full of one subject that she dared not 
speak for fear of the words that might force themselves 
unintentionally from her lips. He came between her 
and all possibility of enjoying the beauty of the weather 
and scenery. He came for this brief period of time be- 
tween herself and common consideration for others. 
She was vaguely conscious as they drove along that 
Mr. Barker was asking her questions and pointing out 
different objects. But she could neither answer nor 
observe ; she could only suffer and be dumb. 

It must not be supposed that she had during this 
long interval, of non-intercourse with him indulged in 
the imbecile hope of ever getting him back again. 
She had taught herself to believe the stern truth that 
as a lover he had left her for ever, out of either indif- 
ference or caprice, and she had schooled herself to 
look this truth in the face without flinching. She had 
even accustomed herself to the thought of his marry- 
ing some one, but this imaginary “some one ” else 
she had always believed would be of the very high- 
est order of womankind ; would be, in fact, a fitting 
mate for a man whom she had endowed with all the 
grandest, man-like qualities. That he should have 
stepped down to carry on what looked very like an 
underhand flirtation with a girl who smirked and 
tossed her head, and gave sly meaning glances when 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


191 

she spoke of him, and carried on a surreptitious 
correspondence with him, shocked and hurt her, and 
caused her to remember with a sense of burning 
shame that she had allowed this man to kiss her — so 
great had been her love for and trust in him ! This 
man, who was now apparently playing a frivolous 
game which must end in his either wronging himself 
or wronging the one with whom he was playing it. 


At last the silence she was maintaining became 
oppressive to herself. Turning her head suddenly, 
fraught with the resolution to “say something,” to 
“ try and be civil” to the companions who had come 
out to spend a happy day with her, she became aware 
that Mr. Barker s eyes were fixed upon her with curi- 
ous solicitude. The instinct of self-preservation made 
her cry out, — 

“Take care, you’re too near the bank ; ” and so the 
ice was broken, for Dolly and the children, who were 
very tired of each other’s conversation in the back- 
ground, bent forward now and joined in the hail- 
storm of chaff which fell on Barker’s unheeding ears 
about his careless driving. 

“You’ve been staring at Miss Herries for ten 
minutes by my watch,” one of the children who had 
lately been given a wristlet watch, and who was 
proud to put her new possession prominently forward 
as a useful factor in the day’s arrangements, said ; 
“ quite ten minutes by my watch, and the old grey 
has just ‘ loped’ along as he liked. Why did you 
stare like that at Miss Herries, Mr. Barker? She 
hasn’t got a smut on her nose.” 

“ I couldn’t help it and I didn’t try to help it,” he 
answered, with Hibernian candour and contrariety. 
Then they spoke of the mesmeric effect a fixed gaze 
has upon the one gazed at ; and the necessity for 
catching the conversational ball and throwing it back 
quickly diverted Jane’s thoughts into a healthier, and 
happier channel. Every now and again the thought 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


192 

of him engaged in unworthy dalliance with the 
commonplace little flirt who was now trying to re- 
absorb some of Mr. Barker’s fugitive attentions would 
strike Miss Herries like a blow ; but she had mastered 
herself sufficiently, not only to be able to subdue all 
expression of pain by the time they landed at Mount 
Edgecombe, but also to be able to take a lively in- 
terest in what she saw, and to teel that she should not 
be at all sorry to see the hamper unpacked. 

In fact, she had passed through the first keen pangs 
— the smarting, scorching pangs — of indignant, 
mortified, angry, helpless jealousy. Reason was 
beginning to reassert its sway, and she was taking 
herself to task for being a fool, and reminding herself 
that she had no earthly right or reason to feel 
aggrieved at anything Captain Stafford might do or 
leave undone when she was called upon to face 
another difficulty, and solve another problem. 


CHAPTER Xjm. 

A WILD FLOWER. 

Dolly Abbot had, very fortunately, Mr. Barker thought, 
met a group of young “ old Plymouth friends ” almost 
as soon as they landed. Two or three very young 
subalterns, escorting each other’s sisters and cousins, 
were “ a change from Mr. Barker, the tiresome 
children, and the odiously stuck-up governess,” Dolly 
told herself, so, after appointing an hour for luncheon, 
she walked away with her friends with the remark, — 
“The children know the ropes here quite well, 
Jane, you needn’t give yourself any trouble about 
them ; see, they’re off already, greedy little things. 
They’ll turn up safely enough when they’re hungry, 
and they’re sure to be that soon. ” 

“ And you’ll do the same, I suppose ? ” 

“ Of course I shall ; but till then you can do as you 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 19 ^ 

like — you and Mr. Barker,” she added in a whisper, as 
she ran off laughing. 

“ ril take you to a jolly bench, where you will get 
a fine view. I suppose I may come with you, and 
stay with you. Miss Herries .? ” Barker said, and Jane 
was half-conscious of a certain wistfulness in histone, 
and desire to be with her in his manner, which was 
vaguely pleasant to her. 

“You may, certainly ; we have come out to amuse 
each other for the day. Dolly and the children don’t 
seem inclined to have anything to do with us,” Jane 
answered cordially. 

She could not help infusing a certain little air of 
tolerant kindness at times, and at others a slight — a 
very slight — touch of patronage into her manner to 
this young man. She tried to eliminate it, but there 
it was, and whenever she was conscious of having 
been guilty of either the tolerant kindness or the 
patronising air, she tried to make amends to him by 
being extra friendly and easily familiar, as she would 
have been with one of her equals. 

Of course, she was to blame for these things, more 
especially for being the last, for that made her so 
dangerously misleading. It must be admitted, on 
the other hand, that Mr. Barker was endowed with 
that sanguine temperament which renders a man 
peculiarly liable to be misled. Moreover, he saw 
nothing but a pretty girl’s transparent efforts to play 
at being the star to the male moths around her in her 
natural manner. And when she turned on the frank, 
friendly, “ comrade ” stop, he found her so closely 
resembling a dozen dear, lovely, fresh, free and utterly 
unconventional Irish girls whom he had left in their 
native fastnesses near Bantry, that he fell more head 
over ears in love with her than ever for their sakes. 

Meanwhile, they were sauntering slowly towards 
one of the benches near the entrance to the Park. He 
amused her, for he was vivacious as well as adoring. 
He talked incessantly ; told her of some of his earlier 

13 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


194 

aspirations and more recent disappointments all in 
a few minutes, and then he said, — 

“ I hardly know why IVe told you all this ; only, 
somehow, I thought you’d like me better if you knew 
that I wanted to be a soldier, and that I passed all 
right .enough into Sandhurst. But my uncle — he’s 
good to my mother and sisters — would have me noth- 
ing but a doctor. You don’t think much of doctors, 
now, do you ? ” 

Miss Herries looked at the handsome, lissom, spir- 
ited young fellow walking by her side, and bending 
devotionally towards her. Honestly, hitherto she 
had not “ thought ” very much of doctors. The few 
who had crossed her heedless path had been either 
old or uninteresting to her. But here, now, close to 
her side, was one who was quite outside all her pre- 
vious experiences of the mere modern middle-class 
medicine man. A new-born respect for him and his 
profession flashed from her eyes as she answered, — 

“I think that you are ready to do, and will do, 
just as much gallant, daring work as any soldier can 
do. I am sure that you have the pluck and endur- 
ance to win a — a — V. C, if one were given for medi- 
cal services.” 

He switched off the biggest frond of a beautiful 
and unoffending lady-fern before he spoke. The lady- 
fern was a handy object on which to vent the irrita- 
tion he felt at Jane’s words of commendation. 

“That’s just it. Miss Herries. A man may risk 
his life knowingly every day in my profession, and 
do it as cheerfully as any soldier does in the heat of 
a battle. But* there’s no glory about the way in which 
we show ourselves ready to render up our lives. W'e 
may spend hours in a plague-stricken house, know- 
ing that each breath we draw may impregnate us 
with deadly poison. The foes we fight can’t be 
fought with sword and fifle. The weapons we use 
we can never dare to lay down for a moment ; we 
must always be under arms. But it doesn't strike 


THE HO JVO [/TABLE /A HE. 


195 

you, for instance, that there’s any glory in the career, 
does it, Miss Herries ? ” 

He was speaking excitedly, looking down upon 
her with his handsome face flushed, and an expres- 
sion of proud defiance upon it that appealed to her 
own generously defiant nature. 

“ You think me a sillier girl than I am, Mr. Barker. 
I haven’t known much practically of doctors or doc- 
tor’s lives, but what you have been saying has made 
me remember some stirring lines on the same subject. 
They’re by Clement Scott, you ought to know them ; 
every doctor ought to know the ‘ Doctor’s Dream. ’ ” 

“ Tell them to me.” 

“I can’t remember them all, but I can never forget 
some of the lines when he speaks of — 

The kindly voice of a dear old man who talked to us lads of the 
men who heal, 

Of the splendid mission in life of those who study the science 
that comes from God, 

Who buckle the armour of nature on, who bare their breasts and 
who kiss the rod. 

So the boy disappeared in the faith of the man, and the oats were 
sowed ; but I never forgot 

There were few better things in the world to do, than to lose all 
self in the doctor’s lot.” 

She paused, panting a little from the unwonted ex- 
citement of reciting, nervously alive to all that had 
been faulty in her rendering of the lines, and desper- 
ately afraid that he might think her foolish, and fail 
to comprehend the subtle connection which existed 
between what he had been saying and the poem she 
had quoted. She knew that Florence, who would 
not have felt the tiniest fraction of what she was feel- 
ing, would have infused all sorts of wonderful mean- 
ings into the lines by the charm of her falsely sym- 
pathetic voice and manner. Whereas she (Jane) had, 
she was well aware, scrambled through them, some- 
times too rapidly, sometimes too slowly, in a way 
that had robbed them of half their beauty. She felt 
gratefully relieved, therefore, when he said, — 

“ Go on ! tell me more of it.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


196 

They had come to the bench by this time, and he 
motioned her to seat herself upon it as he spoke. 
Rather to her embarrassment, he flung himself on the 
grass at her feet. There was only one man in the 
world whom she desired to see in that position. In- 
cidental men ought not to presume to show her that 
sort of homage, she felt. Idowever, he had to the 
full as much right to the turf in .Mount Edgecombe 
park as a resting-place as any other man who liked 
to sprawl upon it on public days. Accordingly she 
resigned herself to the situation, and taxed her mem- 
ory for some more lines from the “ Doctor’s Dream.’’ 

“I’ve got them ! ’’ she exclaimed presently, after 
scribbling in a note book for a few minutes ; “ direct- 
ly I began to write the first line, the rest came readily. 
Now you shall read them for yourself.” 

“ Indeed, no. Miss Herries. I want to hear them 
from your lips first. I want to associate them with 
you entirely and alone. I shouldn’t take in their 
meaning if I read them ; you must speak them to 
me.” 

“ Where can those children be I ought to go and 
look after them. ” 

“Ah! now, don’t make the young Abbots hate 
you. Let them alone ; they are entitled to their 
liberty to-day as much as we are, you know. Read 
the lines you have remembered ; make me happy — 
for to-day, at least. ” 

“If you’d get up and sit down I could do it, but I 
can’t bear to be looked at when I’m reading ; it 
makes me fidget, it makes me hot. If Fritz even 
fixes those pretty eyes of his on me when I’m reading 
aloud, I have to make him turn round. You must do 
the same, or you must get up from the grass, where 
you’re catching cold, and sit down sensibly.” 

“I’lHook straight up into the sky, I swear I will,” 
he said, stretching himself flat on his back, and cross- 
ing his arms under his head ; “if you were kind, you 
might put a little bit of your cloak just over me, to 
keep the draught away from my chin.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


197 


He took the hem of her fur-lined silk cloak in his 
hand, and pressed it against his lips. The sooner 
she read the lines she had promised to read to him 
the sooner this silly episode would be over, she felt. 
Accordingly, she launched herself again on the treach- 
erous waves of verse. 

“It’s a country doctor’s life he’s writing about; 
just such a lot as you have chosen, you know,” she 
began explaining, then she went on to read — 

“ So 1 left the life that had seeemd so dear, to earn a crust that 
isn’t so cheap. 

And I bought a share of a practice here to win my way and to 
lose my sleep ; 

To be day and night at the beck and call of men who ail and 
women who lie. 

To know how often the rascals live, and see with sorrow the dear 
ones die. 

To be laughed to scorn as a man who fails, when nature pays her 
terrible debt ; 

To give a mother her first-born’s smile and leave the eyes of the 
husband wet. 

To face and brave the gossip and stuff that travels about through 
a country town ; 

To be thrown in the way of hysterical girls, and live all terrible 
scandals down. 

To study at night in the papers, of new disease and of human ills, 

To work like a slave for a weary year, and then to be cursed when 
I send my bills ! ” 

Her self-consciousness had vanished and^ she read 
the last few lines with a vigour that showed'how well 
she understood and appreciated them. As she fin- 
ished, she glanced down and saw the corner of her 
cloak being more warmly and kindly treated than 
before, while he was looking at her with eyes full of 
feeling for something beyond the poem. 

“ I shall never accuse you again of the folly of 
thinking a ‘doctor’s lot’ an ignoble one. You 
couldn’t have read that poem as you did if you had a 
contempt for its theme.” 

“I am glad you do me so much justice. I am 
very, very glad that you understand me.” 

Do I understand you I trust I do for if I do not 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


198 

it will be the bitterest mistake I ever made in my life. 
Look here ! Miss Herries ! Jane ! ” he sat up sud- 
denly, and took the hand that was holding the note- 
book, and as he did so, just a dozen yards in front of 
them, Lady Roydmore and Captain Stafford strolled 
leisurely by. 

Helen was tired, and was walking as women are 
apt to walk when that is the case. Her head was 
bent down, her eyes were fixed on the ground, fatigue 
robbed hpr of all desire to gaze at the beauties of 
nature ; and the majority of the human beings 
who were swarming over the place belonged to the 
masses, with whom she had no affinity, consequently 
she did not see the pair who were so near to her, and 
whose attitude as regarded each other was so ambig- 
uous. But they were clearly visible to Captain 
Stafford, and for an instant he halted, the next — a 
bitter, scornful feeling of resentment against Jane, and 
detestation of the man who was sitting at her feet 
took possession of him. He checked the exclamation 
that had risen to his lips, and walked on by Lady 
Roydmore's side without giving Miss Herries the 
opportunity of bowing to him. 

“That is my stepmother,” Jane stammered out. 
“She didn’t see me. I ought to go and speak to her.” 

Mr. Barker turned his head to look after the retreat- 
ing pair., 

“ Don’t interrupt them ; they look happy enough,” 
he laughed out merrily. “That’s Captain Stafford 
with her, an awfully distinguished fellow, a V. C. and 
all that sort of thing ; he’s the finest looking fellow in 
the garrison.” 

‘ ‘ I know — I know him, ” Jane faltered. ‘ ‘ He didn’t 
see me ; he didn’t give me the chance of bowing to 
him.” 

“ He stared hard enough at you,” Mr. Barker said 
jealously, “but he didn’t point you out to Lady 
Roydmore. They neither of them look very smart 
to-day, do they } ” 

“He didnt see me; he couldn't have seen me,” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


199 

Jane argued with agonised earnestness, unheeding 
Mr. Barker s remark. “ If he had seen me he wouldn’t 
have cut me ; why should he have cut me .? ” 

“ For the same reason that I should not ‘see ’ any 
one who might interrupt us now,” Mr. Barker said 
boldly. “I should look away from my own sister if 
by doing so I could keep you all to myself. Listen 
to me, Jane ; I must tell you ” 

“Not now ! Oh, don’t say anything now, please 
don’t,” Jane managed to say ; “and don’t hold my 
hand, you’re hurting it, and it’s so silly.” 

She wrung her hand out of his as she spoke, and 
stood up nervous and trembling, more than half in- 
clined to cry. The mere sight of the man she loved 
had unstrung her, and his careless air of disregard, 
forgetfulness, contempt — which was it ? — stung her to 
the quick. The place, the man by her side, every- 
thing that environed her became loathsome to her at 
once. He had passed her by as if she did not exist 
for him. He, who had told her he loved her, and had 
kissed her as no other man ever had done or should 
do. 

“ He thinks me a weak, bad fool,” she moaned in 
her heart. “He won’t even take the trouble to be 
civil to a girl whom he despises, as he must despise 
me. Yet he ought to know better ! He ought to 
know that I have only been a fool with him.” 

Dolly’s voice cut in upon her excruciatingly hum- 
bling reflections. 

“Hi, Jane, where’s the luncheon basket .? I’ve had 
such a lovely walk,” — she directed a thrilling glance at 
an enslaved lanky military youth by her side, — “ and 
I’ve brought Mr. Wyndham back with me to have 
something to eat. Let me introduce Mr. Wyndham 
to you, Jane ; he knows some of your people ; don’t 
you ? At least you said your uncle and aunt knew 
Lady Roydmore, and Lady Roydmore is your step- 
mother, I’ve found out. Where are the children ? 
Let us go and find the tiresome little wretches, and 
have some luncheon.” 


200 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


The quartette moved off in the direction of the little 
inn by the landing place at Cremyl, and again, sorely 
against her will, Miss Herries found herself coupled 
up, so to say, with Mr. Barker. He was in high 
spirits, for he thought he had made great way with 
her this day. He carried her cloak, and . adhered to 
her side with a lover-like devotion that made the girl, 
whose head and heart were full of another man, feel 
sick. Dolly and her newly annexed swain loitered 
along behind, the former now and again shouting out 
little sentences of meaningless chaff that made Jane’s 
blood boil, such as, — 

We are very sorry that hunger drove us to disturb 
you, Jane. I feel that Mr. Barker will never forgive 
us, but we will be very good-natured, and directly 
we’ve had luncheon we will go away again. I sup- 
pose you will try to see a little more of the place, 
won’t you ? I warn you that my uncle has a horrid 
habit of asking you all about a place you’ve been to. 
When he gives up Mr. Barker and the waggonette for 
the day for the amusement of his young people, as he 
calls them — I hate being lumped up with the children 
in that way — he expects in return a full account of all 
that we have seen and done. I can give a good 
account of myself. I’ve walked to Cawsand and 
back, and made a bad sketch of a boat. What have 
you done, Jane ? ” 

“ Sat on a bench and made a fool of myself,” Jane 
answered hastily. The moment she had spoken she 
repented herself of her words, for Mr. Barker was 
gazing at her with undisguised love and reproachful- 
ness depicted on every feature of his handsome face, 
and Dolly was laughing maliciously. 

“You should have come with us,” the latter cried 
dauntlessly ; '‘we haven’t made fools of ourselves, have 
we, Mr. Wyndham ? We have only been having a 
prosaic walk and a platonic talk. Why, look, Jane, 
there are Lady Roydmore and Captain Stafford walk- 
ing down to the steamer. How badly they are both 
groomed; I wonder they are not ashamed to stand 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


201 


in the sunlight. Shall we run down and speak to 
them V It would be such a joke.’’ 

“I don’t suppose they wish to see us,” Jane mur- 
mured. 

“ That’s where the joke would come in,” Dolly 
laughed ; .but though she laughed, her usually pale 
cheeks were deeply tinged with the roses of angry 
consciousness. She was not at all in love with Cap- 
tain Stafford. She never had felt, and never would 
feel, a particle of the deep emotion which stirred Miss 
Herries to the centre of her being. But she had set 
herself the task of “getting hold of Captain Stafford,” 
as she phrased it, if he were to be got hold of by 
either direct attack or cautious undermining. Dolly 
would never love him, but she could feel passion for 
almost any man on the slightest provocation. It had 
been her aim lately to make him believe that it was 
only “her principles” — Dolly’s principles! — which 
held her passion in check. If she could once get him 
to compromise her and himself, Dolly felt that the rest 
would be easy. 

With this view she had entangled him into a cor- 
respondence with her— a correspondence that neither 
amused nor interested him, but which, nevertheless, he 
allowed to drift because it pleased the girl whom he 
was pleased to regard as a mere “nice, innocent 
child, whose life was a dull one.” There was noth- 
ing serious about it on his side. He thought of her as 
his “ wild flower,” and would not have cared a bit if 
some other man had taken a fancy to pluck it. But 
the wild flower was of the woodbine or wild bryony 
order ; if once her tendrils got twisted round a man’s 
feet, he would find some difficulty in freeing himself. 
In fact, he never dreamt that in a game of gay fooling 
the wild flower could give him points, and still beat 
him easily. 

“That’s where the joke would come in. If you 
won’t be civil enough to come with me, I shall go 
alone and speak to them.” 


202 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


CHAPTER 

A YOUNG man’s FANCY. 

1 

The night of discomfort, and the long walk of the 
morning, the unsatisfactory condition of her toilette, 
and the knowledge that her pretty hands were getting 
embrowned by the sun, had all tended to reduce 
Lady Roydmore to a state of nerve-weariness and de- 
pression that made her unable to carry her head hand- 
somely, and made her look ten years older than she 
was. She was feeling painfully conscious of a drag- 
gled dress and a hat that was rain-sodden out of all 
smartness. But she was still more painfully con- 
scious that fatigue had brought out those telltale lines 
round the eyes and mouth which show that the glory 
of a woman’s summer is going, that the sere and yel- 
low of autumn is fast approaching for her. 

They were walking languidly down towards the 
steamer, she silent from inanition, and a little from 
hurt vanity — every woman hates to look hideous un- 
justly, as the elements sometimes compel her to look ; 
he silent also, and a little sulky because of that vision 
he had had of Jane in a becoming dress, in a becom- 
ing light under a tree, through whose spreading 
branches the sunbeams fell upon her in flecks of gold, 
with a handsome man sprawling at her feet. ‘ ‘ Sprawl- 
ing” was the word Captain Stafford used in describ- 
ing the scene to himself. Had he been in Mr. Barker’s 
position, he would have said probably that he was 
“stretched on the grass.” However, this is unimpor- 
tant. It had annoyed him to see Mr. Barker where he 
was ; accordingly, he liked to think of him as of one 
who sprawled in an ungainly way at an irrespon- 
sive woman’s feet. 

Into their meditations, their silence, their sulks, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


203 

whichever it might have been, came a light, merry 
voice with the words, — 

‘ ‘ Lady Roydmore, IVe been running yards after you. 
We coiikhii think it was you at first, looking so — so 
dismal, but directly I was sure I said to Jane I should 
run after you and make you come back and share our 
picnic. How d'ye do. Captain Stafford .? ” These 
last words with a long, under-the-lids glance at Cap- 
tain Stafford, which he did not quite know what to do 
with, and which Lady Roydmore intercepted, and re- 
sented promptly. 

‘ ‘ I am sorry you ran. Miss Abbot,” she said coldly. 

“ Miss Herries is here, you say .? I should have been 
glad to see her, but the steamer is just going; good- 
morning. ” 

She bent her head in the stiffest parting bow that it 
is possible for one woman to bestow upon another — 
buckram is limp in comparison to it — and passed on 
quickly to the steamer. As Captain Stafford was rais- 
ing his hat to Dolly, and following, the wild flower 
sent out one of her detaining tendrils, and caught his 
arm. 

‘ ' I’ve done nothing but cry since I saw you last, 
because you wouldn’t promise me that you would 
come and take me for a ride. Why did you make me 
want to go out and have walks and rides in the 
country roads — I- hated them till you took me into 
them— if you weren’t going to keep it up } Every- 
thing about me is much duller than it was before I 
knew you. Why won't you write to me.? Why 
don’t you tell me that you love me when you do 
write .? You do, I know, for you call me ‘ dear 
Dolly,’ and your ‘ wild flower.’ Oh, Harry, leave 
that hateful woman to go on by herself, and come 
back with me.” 

He might have been moved to pity her, and make 
a fool of himself at this juncture, if he had not 
detected under all her apparent abandonment to the 
passion she was feigning a quick, clear, self-possessed 
adherence to the main chance. There was calcula- 


204 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


tion, he felt, in the way even in which she called him 
“Harry” — with studied hesitation, not a bit in the 
irrepressible way in which his name would have 
burst from .her lips if she had really been whirled on 
to utter it by the overwhelming torrent of genuine 
feeling. 

“ You had better go back to the other children,” he 
laughed ; but he was bitterly annoyed. “You have 
been emancipated from the schoolroom too soon. 
Now, good-bye ; I must not leave Lady Roydmore 
any longer for the steamer may go at any moment. ” 

He raised his deerstalker again, and left her, but 
Dolly was not a bit nonplussed, not even for a 
moment. 

“Silly goose,” she said to herself contemptuously, 
as she turned and walked back leisurely to rejoin her 
companions. “He thinks I don’t know what I’m 
about. He thinks he has un designedly won my 
virgin heart, and doesn’t quite know what to do with 
the blessing. What idiots men are to write letters 
after a guest-night dinner, especially to ‘ wild flowers,’ 
who don’t very much care what happens so long as 
they get transplanted from their native country lanes.” 

She came back into the circle of her family and 
friends as these thoughts rushed through her brain, 
but she was cool and capable as ever. 

“ Oh, here all you children are,” she said, address- 
ing the young Abbots ; “ I thought a few of you were 
drowned, but that was Miss Herries’ look-out, not 
mine. Your stepmother looked such an old frump, 
Jane, and Captain Stafford looked — well, as a man 
generally does look when he has to escort an old 
trump. Captain Stafford can be so charming when he 
is pleased ; I’ve never seen him anything but charm- 
ing till to-day, but to-day he was distinctly grumpy. 

I rather like to see a man grumpy when a woman 
drags him off against his will. It’s a thing /never 
would do, but I think men deserve it when they’re so 
weak. Now, Mr. Wyndham, you’d never be weak in 
that way. You’d never let me drag you 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


205 


“Round the world if you like," he interrupted. 

Dolly bridled and blushed. The art of blushing at 
will was one that she had cultivated from her earliest 
childhood. She had found it very efficacious at times 
in her progress^ through life. The blush, as a rule, 
was rather indicated than expressed. Dolly would 
clap her hands up to her cheeks, and lower her head 
suddenly, and bystanders understood by this that she 
was blushing. She went through this little panto- 
mime, rather to the disgust of Miss Herries, who had 
witnessed the performance before, but greatly to Mr. 
Wyndham’s edification. Rethought her one of the 
“sweetest girls he had ever met," and was ready to 
offer to share a subaltern’s pay and prospects with her 
on the spot. It struck him as quite a delightful co- 
incidence that she should be called “ Dolly," the pet 
abbreviation for Dorothy, which was his rich old 
aunt’s name. With all his heart he wished he were 
a year older, that he might offer Miss Abbot a man’s 
hand. Still, he felt reassuringly that she was just one 
of those dear girls who would wait for ever for a 
fellow she really cared for ; and after this long, happy 
day in Mount Edgecombe, she probably would care 
very much for him, for she had already told him that 
she was quite heart-free, and that she “never flirted 
like the Plymouth girls.’’ 

“ Let us keep together this afternoon,’’ Jane whis- 
pered to Dolly after their picnic luncheon ; “I don’t 
like going off in pairs, let us keep together, Dolly.’’ 

Dolly grinned. 

“Has Mr. Barker been too demonstrative.?’’ she 
asked. “My dear Jane, I should have thought you 
knew how to keep inflammable young men in check. 
Now, Mr. Wyndham has behaved like a lamb. I 
could lead him by a single hair, but I make him keep 
his distance. He is such a nice boy ! He says I 
remind him of a copy of the Blue Madonna that his 
uncle has at their place at P^edhill. Quite a lovely 
place, he says, and he’s the only nephew. What’s 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


to(y 

the Blue Madonna like, do you know ? Some of the 
pictures of the iMadonna make one squirm/' 

“ 1 never saw the Blue Madonna ; but I think you 
may rest satisfied that iMr. Wyndham is making a 
mistake in 'thinking you like her. Are you going to 
be agreeable, Dolly, and let us all keep together for 
the rest of the day ? ” 

I never kept all together for a day if I could get 
a man to myself in my life. AMiat's the good of kecq)- 
ing together.? It tongue-ties the men. I must con- 
fess your presence wouldn't tongue-tie vie, Jane, for 
1 can talk by signal as well as by my lips ; but it will 
be dull for you, because you won't be in the swim 
with Mr. Wyndham and me ; and Mr. Barker will be 
afraid to say much to you." 

“ i don't want him to say anything to me ; I will 
keep the children with me. " 

“ Poor Jane ! " Dolly laughed mockingly. “ Is that 
the best you can do with a fine day .? ^^’hy, you can 

‘ keep the children with you ’ when it’s pouring with 
rain and you in the schoolroom. You (ire silly not to 
enjoy yourself when you can. I believe — yes, I 
really do believe — that you are hurt and fretting 
because Captain Stafford wouldn't come back to speak 
to you. Now, if I had wanted him to come with me 
ever so much (which I didn't), I wouldn’t have shown 
it. He would have given anyiliing for an excuse to 
get away from Lady Roydmore, but I wasn’t going to 
help him to one. The fact is, I didn’t want him^to- 
day ; I infinitely prefer that young Wyndham." 

“Come along, children, you won’t desert me, will 
}mu .? " Jane said, stifling with anger, unfounded 
jealousy and mortification. She did not believe one 
quarter of Dolly’s insidiously malicious insinuations ; 
at the same time, there was gall and wormwood for 
her in the sound of them. 

The little Abbots were no better, no nobler than 
others of their age and class. They had been having 
a free, happy, unfettered time down among the danc- 
ing waves all the morning. They had made them- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


207 


selves wet and grubby without let or hindrance from 
any one in authority, and they did long to repeat the 
experience. Accordingly now, when Jane appealed 
to them for their companionship, they gave a wild 
whoop, and ran off shouting, — 

“All very fine ! You deserted us in the morning ; 
tit for tat, tit for tat ; shan’t stay with you now. ” 

“I should let them alone if I were you, Jane,” 
Dolly said contemptuously, as she strolled off with 
Mr. Wyndham. “They always tell tales if they’re 
interfered with. / never interfere with them, and I 
take good care that they have the nastiest pudding 
cook can make (and she is skilful at making nasty 
puddings) if they interfere with me. You had better 
follow my example.” 

Jane’s eyes followed her adviser as the latter tripped 
off gaily with her slave for the day at her side. Miss 
Herries was feeling rather more sick and sore than 
she had ever felt in her life. She had never counted 
on Dolly’s fidelity or loyalty, but she had believed 
that the children would have stood by her and stayed 
with her, instead of which they were scampering in 
devious directions, dividing their forces for the pur- 
pose of foiling her if she went in pursuit. 

“I am not fit to combat these people, ’’‘she told 
herself bitterly. “ They have no refinement, no con- 
sideration. Even the children are selfish and cruel. ” 

It stung her as if he had struck her with a lash, or 
uttered the bitterest reproach, a moment after, when 
Mr. Barker, who had been busy repacking the 
luncheon basket, said, — 

“ I am sure you are tired. Miss Herries. I know 
you would rather just sit down alone and have a read 
than be bothered with any one talking to you. See ! 
I've got the London Figaro and Society in my pocket. 
The gossip may amuse you till the children are tired 
of mud-larking, and Dolly Abbot is tired of Mr. 
Wyndham. I’ll just go right off and smoke a pipe 
quietly. ” 

“ You are kind,” Jane said, taking his papers, and 


2o8 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


giving him a look of such intense gratitude that he 
nearly forfeited it on the spot by staying with her. 
However, considering he really was very much in 
love, and very earnest about carrying his love to a 
successful issue, he acted on this occasion with rare 
discretion. He went off to smoke, leaving Jane alone 
to fret over the inevitable, to fidget about the way- 
ward children, who would not come when she called 
them ; to find the Figaro stupid, and Society scan- 
dalous ; to feel very solitary and neglected, and, 
above all, to miss him. 

Dolly spent the shining hours to what she consid- 
ered much better advantage. The boy by her side — 
he was only twenty, but a man’s heart beat in his big, 
athletic young body — was as wax in the hands of the 
girl who was well accustomed to the manipulation of 
man in all stages of his development. If she had any 
personal prejudices against the physique of the one 
who was currently to be conquered, she had a won- 
derful way of concealing them. She could smile up 
into the face of a satyr, gush effusively at a gorilla, 
fawn upon and flatter any one if she fancied it would 
pay. How much easier was it, therefore, to do any 
and all of these things in the case of such a goodly 
youth as*]\Ir. Wyndham.? Before he knew that he 
was counting his chickens before they were hatched, 
he had laid bare all his hopes and expectations con- 
cerning his uncle and aunt. He had told Dolly whose 
was the photograph he had hitherto worn in his 
locket, and declared his intention of dethroning that 
photograph in favour of one of hers ; and he had 
pressed on her acceptance a ring which was much 
too large for her. 

“You shall write and ask me prettily for my pho- 
tograph ; mind, if you don’t ask very prettily for it, 
you sha’n’t have it. And you don’t think I am going 
to keep this ring, do you } Why, people would think 
I was engaged.” 

“Why won’t you be engaged to me.?” he asked 
hotly. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


209 


“You don’t know what you are talking about.” 

“I do ; and 1 know what I mean too, and that’s 
more to the purpose. I mean that I’ll get engaged to 
you, and tell every one of my people, and marry you 
right off the reel if you’ll have me. ” 

“You dear, nice boy,” Dolly said slowly ; “ it’s so 
easy to say that, but I know you don’t mean it. You 
think 1 am a silly girl, whose head will be turned by 
your flattery. Of course I am flattered ; I can’t help 
being that. But you shouldn’t laugh at me, and try 
to make sport of me.” 

Then, naturally, he swore many things which he 
had not thought of five minutes before, and it ended 
in Dolly’s granting him permission very reluctantly, 
and after much solicitation, to write to her. 

“ But you mustn’t come out to call yet for a long 
time. I must have time to think of lots of things be- 
fore I let you come out. Aunt is a perfect dragon. 
She can’t bear any one to look at me, and my uncle 
always listens to her. So you won’t come, will you, 
till I give you leave 1 ” 

This made him feel very manly and determined. 
The “ Young Lochinvar’s ” sensations set in strongly 
as soon as he heard that her aunt was a dragon. 
Neither bolt nor bar should keep him from his own 
true love, he told himself and her as he walked along 
by her side ; and Dolly looked at him with trusting, 
wide-open eyes and parted lips. 

“You will write to me too, won’t you, Dolly?” he 
pleaded, when Dolly had given certain directions 
about his epistles, such as, he was “to be sure and 
use plain envelopes ; if he used the regimental ones, 
the servants would gossip about them.” 

“ I don’t think I’ll write,” sagacious Dolly replied ; 
“ you see I shouldn’t be able to say much about my- 
self, and you wouldn’t care to hear about a lame pet 
crow and the poultry. Besides, I won’t give myself 
away by writing to you till I know that you mean 
what you say ; till I feel quite sure you’re not laugh- 
ing at me.” 


14 


210 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“If you doubt me, Til write and tell my uncle 
to-night what I want, and what I mean. He won’t 
treat me like a boy ; he will believe that I know my 
own mind. And as soon as I get his answer Til 
come out and speak to your uncle.” 

“You won’t do that till I give you leave. Why, I 
haven’t said ‘yes,’ or anything like it, yet. I sup- 
pose you think I ought to jump at you } But I won’t, 
because I feel almost sure you’ll repent and alter your 
mind. Don’t stamp and get impatient. How can I 
think you mean it while you keep that thing in your 
locket .? ” 

The hitherto prized photograph of one whom he 
had loved wildly in the days of his bygone youth, six 
months ago, was torn from its setting in a moment, 
and offered humbly to the winds in little bits in Dolly’s 
honour, at Dolly’s dictation. 

“ Now I feel better, for I trust you a little — ever so 
little — bit more, Mr. Wyndham.” 

“ Don’t call me Mr. Wyndham ; call me by my first 
name.” 

“ What is your first name .? ” 

“ Paul.” 

She made a face expressive of disapprobation. 

“Haven’t you another.? No ; well, I shall go on 
calling you Mr. Wyndham till I know you better. 
Paul is a name not to be lightly spoken. And now, 
we will go back to Miss Herries and the others. And 
remember, when you write to me use plain envelopes, 
and don’t expect me to answer your letters, for I know 
you’re only joking.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


2II 


CHAPTER X I ^ 

A LADY-LIKE ROGUE. 

For three or four days after the young people’s pic- 
nic, there was a good deal of the dismal pervading 
the atmosphere at Plym Tor. By way of toning 
down the exuberant spirits which had been caused by 
one day of warmth and sunshine in the west of Eng- 
land, dreary rain, accompanied by bleak east winds, 
set in for a week or two. The moral tone got lowered 
and limp. It is utterly impossible for a family circle, 
meeting daily for say ten days, in rain-bound con- 
dition, unrelieved by the presence of a- stranger, to 
maintain an air of calm domestic cheerfulness, much 
less of innocent hilarity. The loving and busy, de- 
voted mother of a family of young children has the 
best of it on these occasions. She can always em- 
ploy the spare time that might otherwise hang heavily 
on her hands in devising new pastimes for the frac- 
tious and insatiable youngsters. There are some 
women who positively revel in the calls made upon 
their ingenuity and endurance by the restless autocrats 
of the nursery and schoolroom during a lengthened 
interval of indoor life. They fail to see that their 
offspring are adding new cares to those which the 
weather has already inflicted upon the other occu- 
pants of the house. They not only think it ill-natured, 
but short-sighted and oblivious of the privileges which 
might be theirs on the part of others who hold aloof, 
or scowl upon the unfortunate darlings. Mrs. Abbot 
was a mother of this type. Her children never 
troubled, bored or annoyed her. It was, therefore, 
more in sorrow than in anger that she saw Dolly 
snub her aggressive young cousins whenever they 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


approached her with the plea that ‘‘she would play 
musical chairs, or dumb crambo, or the piano, or 
build card houses, or do something to 'muse them. ” 

There was a good deal of stinging asperity in the 
snubs she administered to those to whom she dared 
“let out a bit of her real nature and feelings." Dolly 
was dull, and impatient for something to happen 
which seemed to her to be hanging fire. Whenever 
Dolly was rather dull and impatient, she was more than 
rather cross. Whenever she was cross, she snubbed 
her cousins remorselessly, and if they complained, 
she took care that they had a course of wholesome, 
unappetising puddings, that were repugnant to their 
young palates. 

Her curiosity was excited, too, by seeing that IMiss 
Herries received in the course of a week three or 
four letters from her step-mother, d'hese letters were 
carefully sealed with red wax, and impressed with 
Lady Rody more’s crest, so there was no possibility of 
their coming open by accident, and delivering up 
their contents to Miss Abbot. This was vexatious, 
for Dolly really hungered after a knowledge of their 
contents. As Jane neither went into Plymouth nor 
expressed any desire to go, Dolly took it for granted 
that she (Miss Herries) had not been invited by her 
step-mother. But in this she was mistaken. Helen 
had used every persuasion in her power to induce 
Jane to visit her, if only for a day. But Jane steadily 
refused, pleading as her excuse that the brief relapse 
into a bit of the old life might make her dissatisfied 
with the new one of dull, unsympathetic work and 
duty. In reality, she shrank from a meeting with 
Captain Stafford. It was better never to see him at 
all, she now felt, than to see him so altered and so 
utterly lost to her. 

Moreover, various obstacles, trifling in themselves, 
but momentous when heaped together, stood in the 
way of her accepting Lady Roydmore’s invitation. 
In the first place, the bloom was off her toilette, and 
she had no immediate means of renewing it. The 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


213 


delicious aroma of freshness had fled from her boots 
and gloves, from the flowers in her hat, and from the 
dozen little accessories, any failure in which Captain 
Stafford would be quick to discern. She hated being 
shabby, as every nice girl ought to hate that evil 
condition. But she lacked the power of saying “no,” 
and so all her poor little spare cash had gone to Flor- 
ence, who, according to her own showing, was con- 
stantly having a hand-to-hand tussle with penury. 
Then, in addition, to this she knew that, kind and 
motherly and considerate as Mrs. Abbot was, that 
lady was more especially these things to her own 
children. She would not have refused a holiday to 
Miss Herries, but she would have felt that the delight- 
ful picnic day at Mount Edgecombe ought to last for 
some time. The children were the first considera- 
tion, the first and the middle and the last, and it was 
the children’s due that their governess should be in 
the way to amuse when she was not engaged in 
instructing them. 

“ It’s not as if Dolly were good-natured and will- 
ing to lay herself out to divert the dear little things in 
Miss Herries’ absence,” the mother said to herself 
and her husband, who was not listening to her. 
“As it is, I am quite pleased to see that Miss Herries 
is quite contented to stay at home.” 

At home she seemed likely to stay for some time 
if her outgoings were to be governed by Dolly’s 
actions. Dolly was as likely to lay herself out to 
divert the young Abbots as she was to discover the 
North-West passage. She detested being even a 
spectator of the romping games which their mother 
encouraged on the score of their health when they 
could get no out-door exercise. They made the 
room untidy, knocked the dust out of the carpet, 
and got so hot that they felt clammy when they 
inadvertently collided with her. 

“ If I had my way, I’d tie them all up in a sack, 
and -throw them into the duck-pond,” she said sav- 
agely to Miss Herries, one evening when the healthy 


214 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


parlour-sports had been unduly prolonged. The 
children had been extra playful on this occasion. 
They had caught moths and drowsy blue-bottle flies, 
of which they were not at all afraid, and had set 
these obnoxious beasts at liberty on Dolly’s fringe, 
and on the back of her neck. They had dragged 
some of her best frocks from their sacred recesses in 
her drawers, and “dressed up in them ” for the more 
efficient rendering of impromptu characters. They 
had interrupted her fifty times while she was gloat- 
ing over a “ Plain Tale from the Hills,” that ought to 
have made her blood curdle. They had found out a 
box of French chocolate which one of her attaches. 
had presented to her, and fed themselves generously 
therewith. Finally they kissed her with mouths that 
were smeared with jam and cake before going off at 
last, mercifully, to bed. No wonder Dolly wished 
them in the duck-pond. 

“They’re not bad as children go,” Jane said, with 
the tolerance of supreme indifference ; “they’re not 
spiteful ; they don’t tell stories, and they never hurt 
an animal if they know it. Fll untie the sack and 
hook them out of the duck-pond if you throw them 
in,” she added laughingly, as Dolly hesitatingly fol- 
lowed her into a retreat which Jane had hitherto kept 
sacred to herself — her bedroom. 

An oil lamp was burning in the room — a mis- 
managed oil lamp, which had got out of order, and 
was sending its sickening fumes out distressingly. 
Trifles affect us more than serious matters. The 
odour of that oil lamp caused Miss Herries to wish 
that she had never been born, and to exclaim, — 

“ If I could throw the lamp and the one who trims 
it into the duck-pond, I’d do it this instant ” 

“That would be aunt,” Dolly interrupted suavely. 
“ She potters about in the pantry half the morning 
with lamp scissors and dirty bits of rag and flannel, 
and tins that are oozing out all over with pungent' 
oils. That’s what your domestic, excellent manager 
does when she is turned out to grass. I wonder how 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 215 

you will like the life, Jane? I wonder how you’ll 
stand it ? ” 

‘ ‘ Like what ? — stand what ? ” 

“My dear Jane, if I have been premature, please 
forgive me. Only I thought that the way you went 
on with Mr. Barker the other day at Mount Edge- 
combe meant something. Naturally I thought it 
meant something. How could I supose that a nice 
girl like you would absent herself for hours with a 
man unless she ” 

“Oh, Dolly, don’t, don’t !” Miss Herries cried. 

“Well, I won’t, after I’ve had one little say,” said 
Dolly. “I can only tell you that Mr. Barker is 
moving heaven and earth — which means his relations 
and bankers — to get uncle to take him into partner- 
ship. Poor Mr. Barker ! I can only say poor Mr. 
Barker if you have humbugged him. But, of course, 
if there’s another man in the background — well, I 
suppose you know what you are about.” 

“ There is no other man in the background,” Miss 
Herries said stiffly. 

“Then I need not say ‘ poor Mr. Barker.” 

“ Certainly not ; you need not say anything.” 

“ You’re sure that I need not pity Mr. Barker ? ” 

“Sure, quite sure.” 

Jane spoke rapidly and emphatically , as one who 
desires to close a subject is apt to speak. 

‘ ‘ I mean — I do want to be friendly and nice to you, 
Jane, though you have held me at arms’ length — I 
mean that I am glad you are not playing fast and 
loose with Mr. Barker ; he is such a good fellow. 
Captain Stafford will be glad too ; he takes quite an 
interest in you, and he has heard from some one that 
Mr. Barker is very much yours to command. I know 
he will be awfully pleased when I write and tell him 
you are really meaning it with Mr. Barker.” 

‘ ‘ I think we will say good-night. I think I shall 
feel too much ashamed of myself to sleep if I let 
myself listen to you a moment longer. I think, if I 
were a man. I’d never speak civilly to a girl for 


2i6 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


fear she should misunderstand and appropriate me 
against my intention/’ 

Which only means,” said Dolly languidly, draw- 
ing her lissom form up from the bed on which she 
had been stretched, and making for the door, ‘ ‘ which 
only means that you want me to tell Captain Staf- 
ford that you have no desire to collar Mr. Barker. 
Well, my dear, I shall not tell him anything of the 
kind. In the first place, because he would not care 
for the information ; and in the second place, be- 
cause it would not be true. Good-night, Jane ; what 
a jolly time we might have together if you would 
only be a sensible girl, and not cry for the moon. ” 

The thoughts which kept young, healthy Miss Ker- 
ries awake for two or three hours that night were not 
pleasant. It made her tingle with a sensation very 
near akin to shame, that Dolly should have been so 
near the mark in her guesses at truth as to have 
fathomed Jane’s “unrequited” infatuation for Captain 
Stafford. It disgusted her that she should have 
allowed herself to listen to Dolly’s idle, school-girlish 
chatter about spurious loves and imaginary lovers. 
Above all, it gave her the feeling of being caught in 
a strong net that Dolly should persist in pretending 
to believe that there was anything like an understand- 
ing between Mr. Barker and herself (Jane). 

But in the morning these thoughts were abruptly 
dispelled by a letter she received from Florence — 
a letter edged and sealed with black, indited with 
exquisite caution and neatness ; a letter which clearly 
showed that Florence had cast herself for a new part 
in the drama of life, and that she had “got in” to 
this part as closely as if it were her skin. 

The letter was written from a Brighton hotel, and 
Jane read it with interest, but, at the same time, with 
a feeling of nearly the whole of it being as unreal as 
a chapter from a new novel. One or two of the facts 
mentioned were true, doubtless, but the spirit of 
fiction pervaded the rest of it 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


217 

The elder sister was unusually affectionate in her 
mode of address. 

“ My dearest Jane, — Your sympathetic little heart 
will mourn for me when I tell you that I am a widow. 
It is the sad truth. Yet why should I say ‘ sad,’ when 
my poor darling Geofs life had ceased to be a joy 
to either himself or me ? He died ten days ago, bab- 
bling, the doctors and keepers tell me, of his happy 
home and loving wife to the last. It is great satis- 
faction, to me, even in these first days of my heavy 
affliction, to think that I did everything to make his 
painful lot more bearable. Money has never been 
spared. No one but myself will ever know what 
sacrifices I have made in order that his condition 
should be ameliorated as far as possible.” (“She 
must have got hold of a ‘Complete Letter- writer, ’ ” 
Jane thought, when she read as far as this.) 

“ I must not, however,” Mrs. Graves went on, 
“distress you further by dwelling on the sad, sad 
tragedy which has closed dear Geofs life and darkened 
mine. I will try to dwell on what is still left to me 
of brightness in this world. I told you I have been 
at Brighton for several weeks ; but I have not told 
you that I have, while here, made the acquaintance, 
and, I am proud to say, secured the friendship of some 
dear people who have taken the widow and fatherless 
to their large, warm hearts. Mr. and Miss Wynd- 
ham are people whom it elevates the most frivolous- 
minded to know. I more than know them; I love 
them dearly, and long to dedicate my life to their 
service. He is the same Mr. Wyndham who injured 
his knee one day when he came to call on our dear 
mamma. He speaks so sweetly of Lady Roydmore, 
and has given me a much higher opinion of her than 
I ever had before. As for his sister, Miss Wyndham, 
or ‘Aunt Dorothy,’ as she lets me call her, she is one 
of those perfect women nobly planned whom I have 
always longed to meet. 

“For the present, I am to live with these de9.r 


2i8 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


friends, so you need not be anxious about me. They 
have already made me feel that 1 should be acting an 
unworthy part if I surrendered myself entirely to grief 
for my lost Geoffrey. Write to me, my dear sister, 
and cheer me by telling me that you too are happy 
in the path of duty, and the exercise of those gifts 
which Heaven has endowed you with. — Your loving 
and resigned sister, Florence."' 

Jane put down this letter and laughed. She could 
not profess to feel sorrow for poor Geoffrey's death, 
and it struck her as being a humourous thing that 
Florence should have taken the trouble to write her 
such a long and transparently mendacious an epistle. 

“She has every reason to think me a fool, but why 
should she be such a rogue as to try to deceive me 
about her feelings for Geoffrey, and these new friends 
of hers She knows I shan’t believe one word of this 
letter — excepting the statement that Geoffrey is dead. 
Why should she have taken the trouble to do it ? It 
will never occur to her to release me from the en- 
forced exercise of the gifts Heaven has endowed me 
with, I suppose, nor will she make an effort to let me 
have part, at least, of my income, or to redeem my 
pearls. Why should she have taken the trouble to 
write me this letter 1 " 

The answer to this conundrum was an easy one, 
only Jane could not guess it. Florence had written 
that letter and shown it confidingly to Miss Wynd- 
ham, in order that the dear, deluded old lady might 
repeat its contents to her equally credulous brother. 

“We are rather a singular family, I flatter myself," 
Lord Roydmore wrote to his youngest sister, a few 
days after this. “ I have been down to see Florence, 
in order to try and make her behave with common 
honesty towards you now the money is no longer 
wanted for poor Graves. But she baffled me com- 
pletely by declaring that she and you have a private 
understanding. She is playing the mourning widow 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


219 


SO charmingly, that if she hadn’t been my own sister 
she would have taken me in. The Wyndhams seem 
to regard her as something between a goddess and a 
saint, and she has evidently made them believe me 
to be a most unnatural brother. I am to be married 
very quietly on Thursday next. Geoffrey Graves’ 
death will account for none of my own family being 
present. The fact is, my future wife hates Florence, 
and would see her die in a ditch rather than extend 
a friendly finger towards her. I shall be very glad 
when you come to your senses, and then we shall 
see you, of course. ” 

“I think we are a singular family,” Jane said to 
herself ruefully, “ but I seem to be the only one who 
suffers through the singularity. ” 

During these days while Jane had been absorbed 
with these family matters — for Florence insisted on 
her sister writing to her constantly — Dolly Abbot had 
been hatching and maturing a small plot with much 
art and skill. Lady Roydmore, it may be mentioned, 
had gone down to Cornwall for a month to make her- 
self acquainted with the Lizard and Land’s End dis- 
tricts, taking with her a promise from Captain Stafford 
that he would get a week’s leave and drive his chest- 
nuts down to any place in which she might be tenting 
at the time. 

“And if I can persuade her to come, Jane shall be 
with me while you are there,” Helen said to him ; and 
she meant it, too. But Captain Stafford shook his 
head at this. He had already heard that Miss Herries 
had succumbed to the fascinations and importunities 
of the young Irish doctor, and, painful as this rumour 
was to his vanity, he believed it. 


220 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


CHAPTER ISSm, X ( U . 

DOLLY WINS. 

It was a busy, an unusually busy, time in the always 
fully occupied household of the country doctor. An 
obsolete competitor had retired from an opposition 
practice, and Dr. Abbot’s clients had multiplied them- 
selves by scores — by hundreds, even, it was averred. 
A new wing was being added to the house, and was 
to be fitted up as a consulting-room, and Dr. Leonard 
Barker had been taken into partnership, and gone into 
a residence of his own hard by. 

The furnishing and decoration of the consulting- 
room was giving Mrs. Abbot full and agreeable occu- 
pation. She was determined that it should be a 
model consulting-room, a room where harmony of 
colour, perfection of form, and delicacy of detail 
should combine to make every artistically-minded per- 
son in the neighbourhood feel impelled to go into it 
and consult one of the firm of Abbot & Barker. She 
drew elaborate plans of the room, and sent them to 
the infallible oracles who presided over the “Home 
Decoration” department of all the ladies’ journals. 
She got stacks of pattern-books of wall-papers, and 
bales of specimens of curtain stuffs from every eminent 
furnishing shop in town. And after doing these things, 
she finally decided to get everything from Parkhouse 
in Plymouth ; with the result that her decision was 
justified by the effect produced. 

The doctor’s wife was essentially a stay-at-home 
woman. Long drives, unless they were taken in the 
cause of returning duty calls, seemed to her a per- 
nicious waste of time. In fine weather she spent a 


The honourable /ane. 221 

good deal of time in fhe garden with the children and 
the broken-winged crow. 

Her house duties were onerous, and she fulfilled 
them all admirably, in spite of Dolly’s jeer about trim- 
ming the lamps. A day’s shopping in Plymouth she 
regarded as a serious waste of time, especially as 
Dolly could, when she chose, shop with equal dis- 
crimination. Now, when furniture was required for 
the new consulting-room, Dolly volunteered to relieve 
her aunt of the task of selecting it with amiable ardour. 
Consequently she was told off to this service gladly 
by Mrs. Abbot, and she fulfilled her task prudently, 
deliberately and well. 

“Take your time about choosing things ; don’t be 
hurried. I would rather you went in a dozen days 
following than that you should take something not 
quite suitable, because you won’t wait till they can 
send for it,” Mrs. Abbot counselled ; and Dolly took 
this counsel to heart, and did not permit herself to be 
hurried in the least. 

She easily found an excuse for letting Captain Staf- 
ford know that she would be in Plymouth on a certain 
day. The ostensible motive for her writing to him 
was to ask him if he could give her Mrs. Dick Staf- 
ford’s address. She mentioned the shop, and the 
hour at which she would be in it on the following day, 
and added, “ I shall save a mail by posting my letter 
in Plymouth, so if you can send Lily’s address to me 
there, I shall be very grateful to you.” 

As she surmised when she wrote this, he brought 
the address tc^ her himself, and then helped the “ poor 
little girl,” who was so “dreadfully afraid her aunt 
would not be pleased with her taste to choose wall 
papers. They got quite intimate and friendly again 
over this work. Dolly deferred to his opinion, and 
relied on him to back her up if her alarming aunt 
should disapprove of her choice, in a perfectly pathetic 
manner. He found the work boring after a time, and 
then he proposed giving Dolly some luncheon, and 
taking her for a drive afterwards. 


222 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


He proposed this latter exploit in thoughtless idle- 
ness, much as he would have proposed to give a child 
a ride on one of his horses, or anything else that might 
•amuse it, if the child had come in his way. But Dolly 
was quite alive to the power of appearances, and 
knew that Captain Stafford would be made to feel the 
weight of these latter if she agreed to his proposition. 
In fact, she counted the cost of every step she took, 
and every step she led him to lead her to take, and 
added up the sum-total of what it would all come 
to very correctly. She did not miscalculate one iota 
of the weight of the influence of public feeling as 
it was expressed in the faces of the majority of the 
people who knew him, and guessed at her, as he took 
her for this first ill-starred (for him)drive. She returned 
stares of surprise and condemnation with ones of 
easy defiance, and chatted and laughed up into his 
face with a cheerful familiarity that set people talking 
about the possibility, but improbability, of his being 
as much her property as he appeared to be. 

This first drive was but the forerunner of many. 
Dolly was so innocently regardless of the view that 
rnight be taken of her conduct, that (as she amused 
him for the time) he had not the heart to undeceive 
her, nor the self-command to put an end to their com- 
promising intercourse. Before he realised what he 
was about, he was looked askance at by people who 
had hitherto cringed to him. This roused his mettle, 
and made him more pronounced in his attentions to 
the “ poor little girl, ” who had not a thought ‘‘ beyond 
the amusement of the hour. ” Then Dolly contrived 
to drop half hints as to her own and his proceedings 
at home, and to look happily conscious and perfectly 
satisfied when her uncle, who heard of these esca- 
pades too late to check them, spoke to her severely, 
and warned her of her folly. Dolly wrote a piteous 
account of this reprimand to Captain Stafford, impress- 
ing upon him that through what had happened she 
would probably lose the only home and only friends 
she had in the world. By the same post he received 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


223 

a letter from the irate uncle, who was a gentleman, 
and an honourable man, and who had no idea of hav- 
ing one of his kith and kin treated ‘‘as men of your 
calibre think they may treat unprotected girls with 
impunity,” Doctor Abbot wrote. The colonel of his 
regiment found himself forced to take unwilling notice 
of the unpleasant rumours that arose. Dolly’s own 
conduct added fuel to the fire of these rumours, for 
she became ill and hysterical, and cried aloud for him 
“to come to her and take her away,” till his name 
became a household word at Plym Tor, and a by-word 
in the village. Common humanity, combined with 
contempt for all who were accusing him and condemn- 
ing her, led him to put an end to the local scandal by 
offering to do all in his power to repair the mischief 
done by his want of thought. He professed no love 
for Dolly ; but if they thought he ought to marry her, 
and she wished him to do it, he would make her his 
wife, he said, reluctantly and sulkily enough in an 
interview with her uncle. As Dolly declared she 
would die if Harry did not realise the hopes he had 
raised. Dr. Abbot accepted the offer on her behalf, and 
Captain Stafford went forth, feeling that he had acted 
“ honourably,” and that he was a doomed man. 

Dolly took care that the announcement of the en- 
gagement should be in the local papers the next day. 
She gloried in the position, and she took care that all 
men should be apprised of it. It was immaterial to 
her now that the man who was openly pledged to 
her should be cold as ice to her, miserable in himself, 
and very much disposed to shun his fellow-men. 
She had fought with and worsted the hero who had 
won the V. C. She had a feeling of contempt for him 
as a moral coward, who had been conquered by her 
shallow devices and false pretences. Her unstable 
fancy, indeed, in these days veered round to young 
Wyndham, who still believed in her, and who daily 
wrote long letters of passionate protestation and ap- 
peal to her. She showed these letters to Harry Staf- 
ford when he came to play the unwilling lover’s sick- 


224 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


ening- part, and laughed as she saw how he revolted 
at the sight of them. She triumphed openly over 
Jane, who was half stunned by the turn affairs had 
taken, and proposed that, after the marriage, which 
was to take place immediately, they should go down 
into Cornwall, and give his “dear friend. Lady Royd- 
more, a pleasant surprise. ” She astounded him by 
the knowledge she revealed of many things of which 
he had believed her to be profoundly and innocently 
ignorant. But he was bound in honour to her now, 
and he could not go back. 

He was man enough to admit that he was caught 
in the net of his own idle, meaningless gallantries, as 
hundreds of other men have been caught. But the 
admission did not make him one whit the happier. 
He knew that the majority did not accredit him with 
having been a free agent in the matter, but looked 
upon him as a cajoled, coerced, beaten, baffled man. 
He knew that he was spoken of as “having done 
the right thing at last under pressure.” He knew 
that Dolly was regarded as being more faulty than 
she was in reality ; and he could not put these crooked 
matters straight, because every effort he made to 
excuse only accused himself more strongly. 

If he had ever been blinded by passion for her, his 
case would have been a less hard one ; but he had 
never been even so much as mildly in love with her. 
He had, in short, toyed with a kitten, who had sud- 
denly leapt upon and devoured him. The thought 
that he would have to pass the rest of his life with 
her made him curse her and himself at times. 

There was a good deal of speculation rife among 
those who did not know the man, as to whether he 
would not bolt before the wedding day ; but he was 
resolved to go to the altar as he would have gone to 
the scaffold, unflinchingly. The sight and the sound 
of the preparations' that were being made for these 
happy nuptials nearly gave him brain-fever. But 
Dolly enjoyed them, and would not spare him a 
single detail concerning them. 


THE H OHO HE ABLE /A HE. 


225 

He found himself, too, treated with cool reserve 
by Dr. Abbot, and this was as incomprehensible as it 
was unpleasant to him, for Dr, Abbot had been the 
one to put the extreme pressure upon him which had 
resulted in the engagement. It had been Dr. Abbot 
who had interviewed his (Stafford’s) colonel, and the 
immediate outcome of this interview had been that 
the colonel had treated him coldly, and had advised, 
in tones that savoured strongly of a command, that 
Captain Stafford should either marry the young lady 
upon whom and her family he had brought the breath 
of scandal to blow, or send in his papers. Captain 
Stafford had thought the whole treatment of what he 
had considered to be a mere idle flirtation exagger- 
ated to the last degree. But he was in the coil, and, 
without sacrificing the whole of his career, he could 
not get out. He little thought that it was the artful 
misrepresentation of the girl whom he still believed 
to be guileless which had entwined him in these 
subtle chains. He little knew how audaciously Dolly 
had defamed herself, as well as him, for the sake of 
carrying her point. 

It was part of the expiation for his folly during this 
purgatorial period that he had to meet Miss Herries 
frequently. The iron had entered very deeply into 
Jane’s soul when she heard the news that was so 
humbling and so terrible to her. She, of course, 
knew nothing of the traps that had been laid, and 
the pressure that had been put upon Captain Stafford, 
for the Abbots kept their own counsel very closely, 
and no local gossip ever reached her ears. To her 
it seemed that he had surrendered willingly, and as 
Dolly painted glowing pictures of his warmth and 
devotion to her, Jane was constrained to believe that 
he really did love the little mass of insincerity and 
double-dealing whom he had chosen for his wife. 
Indeed, what other motive than love for her could 
have influenced him, for he had nothing to gain, and 
much to lose, by what all his own set would regard 
as a mesalliance. 


15 


226 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


Miss Herries had a good deal of courage, and she 
required all she had at her command when she was 
compelled to meet him in the Abbot family circle. 
That he was, though “in’' it, not “ of” it was very 
obvious. All the gay frankness of manner which had 
so attracted her when she knew him first was gone, 
and in its place she met a reserved, brooding man, 
who went through his duty visits in a way that would 
have been heartrending to a more sensitive betrothed 
than Dolly. 

From the first, Miss Herries adopted the manner of 
never either seeking him or shunning him, a difficult 
part for a woman to play properly, when her every 
thought is given with tenderness to a man. He 
thought her heartless for this, yet in this course which 
she pursued lay her only chance of safely keeping her 
secret, which, if it had been divulged, even then might 
have saved him. 

He had not written to tell Lady Roydmore of his 
abasement, and as she never looked at a local paper, 
she had not seen it there. It annoyed her that, as 
Jane had agreed to go and spend a week with her at 
The Lizard, Harry Stafford should not have responded 
to her invitation to be there at the same time. But 
that he would come Helen never doubted, and she 
prepared herself to see him* and Jane very happy to- 
gether. Lady Roydmore had battled with her love 
for him, using her strong common sense and feeling 
for the fitness of things as her weapons against her 
love. It would be quite in the right order of things 
that Harry Stafford and Jane Herries should come to 
a fair understanding, and arrange to journey through 
life together. Helen schooled herself honestly and 
honourably to play the fair, elder-sisterly part to them 
both, and meant to be very proud of the match 
which she was determined should be made. In fact, 
the only feeling of anything approaching to soreness 
with regard to these people now, was that Captain 
Stafford should see fit to assume an air of indifference 
to the prospect of meeting Miss Herries, by not reply- 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A ACE. 


227 

ing to the invitation for him to do so. It was incom- 
prehensible to her that he should not write, he who 
had never failed to answer her letters. But not even 
a dim suspicion of the direful truth dawned upon her 
till Jane came. 

I'he visit had been well timed. Miss Herries was 
able to avoid the wedding, which, as far as her feelings 
were concerned, would have been like applying a red- 
hot iron to an aching wound. The red-hot iron ap- 
plication may be a certain cure, but it is an extremely 
drastic measure to take, and one which even moder- 
ately heroic humanity may be forgiven for shrinking 
from. Accordingly, Jane went down into Cornwall 
on the eve of Captain Stafford’s wedding day, and 
Dolly drove her to the station, and talked about him 
and the happiness in store for herself (Dolly) the 
whole way. 

It had never occurred to Jane that Lady Roydmore 
could be anything but fully cognisant of what had 
been going on, and of the way in which these “ go- 
ings-on ” had culminated. She believed that Helen 
knew all about it, in fact, and therefore, when the 
latter met her step-daughter with outstretched arms 
and the words : “ My dear Jane, it was time you had 
a change. I’ll give you such a happy time, my child, 
I and Harry Stafford together,” there was no malice 
prepense, no desire to give Lady Roydmore a start- 
ling surprise, in Jane’s reply. 

‘ ‘ Surely you know that to-morrow is his wedding 
day } He will have no time for any one but Dolly 
now. ” 

“His wedding day ! Dolly ! ” 

Lady Roydmore had staggered back to a seat. 
The few words she spoke seemed to be uttered in a 
sharp paroxysm of pain. There was no deception 
about it. If she had been trying to portray dismay, 
disappointment and chagrin that nearly choked her, 
she could not have done it nearly so artistically 
as she did in the first outburst of her surprise and 
distress. 


228 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“He has not told you? Then it’s worse than I 
thought, and he is ashamed of it all, ashamed of him- 
self already. Shall I tell you as much as I know ? 
It s not much, but I should like to get it over, and 
then let the subject drop. Shall I tell you ? ” 

They were seated opposite to each other, by the 
side of a warmth-conveying tire. Jane was bending 
towards it, holding her chilled hands out to its com- 
forting blaze. Helen had thrown herself back in her 
chair, with her elbows and hands resting on its arms. 
There was despondency and a vague yearning for 
comfort in Jane s attitude ; Lady Roydmore’s ex- 
pressed prostration under a sudden blow. 

“Tell me,” she answered briefly. 

“I haven’t much to tell. About three weeks ago 
Mrs. Abbot came into the schoolroom one morning 
and said to the children: “I have some news for 
you. Your cousin Dolly is going to be married to 
Captain Stafford. Be good children, and don’t worry 
your father ; don’t ask him any questions when you 
see him. Promise me that you will be good children, 
and do as I tell you. Your father is not well.’ ” 

“ And that was all ? ” Helen questioned. 

“All that I can remember. The children promised 
not to worry their father — they are moderately obe- 
dient children, and very affectionate. When their 
mother asks them to do a thing, they generally 

‘ ‘ Bother the children, ” Lady Roydmore interrupted. 
“Tell me more. Did Lou Abbot say nothing to you 
— offer no explanation to you ? ” 

Jane shook her head. 

“It would have been extraordinary if she had 
‘ offered any explanation ’ to me. I had never 
spoken about Captain Stafford to her. She may not 
even know that I know him. He has never been 
talked about at Plym Tor since I have been there till 
he was engaged to Dolly.” 

Helen stamped with impatience. 

“Engaged to Dolly ! How can you bear to speak 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


229 

the words ? How can you bear to think of it ? 
‘ Engaged to Dolly ! ’ It's revolting ! 

“And to-morrow he will be married to her," Jane 
said in a very low, unsteady voice. 

“ Dolly found out that you knew him } I am sure 
of that. She found out your weakness as she found 
out mine, as she has found out Harry Stafford’s — and 
traded on it." 

“ My weakness } " Jane questioned. 

“.Yes ; your love for him, for you did love him, 
Jane. So did I ; confess it as I do. Dear, don’t let 
us grudge him the love we have given him, don’t let 
us be ashamed of it. The memory of it may help to 
give him a little comfort — I won’t say pleasure — in 
the time to come, for he will have little besides 
‘ memory ’ to comfort him, I fear. I shall never 
feel pain at any one’s downfall, not even my own, 
after this. Other people will pity him. Fancy any 
one in the world daring to feel ‘ pity ’ for Harry 
Stafford." 

“You’re taking it for granted that he is not fond of 
her. Yet if he isn’t, why should he marry her .? ’’ 

“Don't ask ‘why’ in a case like this, and don’t 
expect me to be reasonable ; and above all don’t take 
up the long-suffering tone of hoping for the best, 
Jane. Say out what you think about it — to me, at 
least. ” 

“Ah, that I won’t even say to myself. If I said 
what I thought, I should never like to look Dolly’s 
husband in the face again, poor fellow." 


CHAPTER XIV . 

“ OWNING UP. ’’ 

The wedding was a sorry sight. Even Dolly — though 
it consolidated her triumph — saw that it was the sor- 
riest spectale of the kind that she had^ever seen or 


230 


The honourable jane. 


read of. Her uncle and aunt had given her a hand- 
some and liberal outfit, but they had steadily refused 
to allow her to wear anything but her sombre travel- 
ling-dress at the ceremony. There were no bride’s- 
maids, there were no guests, no wedding breakfast, 
no string of white-horsed carriages, no pealing of 
marriage bells. The bridegroom had acquiesced 
heartily and gratefully in the suggestion of the bride’s 
people that everything should be conducted in the 
simplest, quietest, least ostentatious way. Miss 
Abbot first fawned and then fought for her wedding 
being made the occasion of a festive function. But 
neither fawning nor fighting availed her. Dr. Abbot, 
for the first time in his life, wrapped himself up in an 
atmosphere of chilling reserve, and even his more 
emotional wife declined to either sympathise or argue 
with Dolly, when the latter tearfully declared that it 
“ was a shame, and of a piece with the way she had 
been treated all along,” that she should be shorn of 
the glory of a show wedding. 

Her opportunities of trying to goad Captain Stafford 
into fighting^ this battle for her had been singularly 
few, and her efforts singularly unsuccessful. After 
paying his betrothed a few miserable duty visits, he 
had got leave and gone up to town, from whence 
he only returned on the eve of the wedding. Even 
then he restrained all lover-like ardour, and made no 
attempt to see his bride until he met her in the church 
on the following day. 

“It was more like a funeral than a wedding.” the 
butt-woman, who was the sole spectator of the cere- 
mony, with the exception of the bride’s uncle and aunt, 
told her friends afterwards. “Mrs. Abbot cried the 
whole time ; the doctor looked black ; and the bride- 
groom looked fitter to step into his coffin than to be 
the husband of pretty Miss Dolly. As for pretty Miss 
Dolly herself, she held her head higher than ever, and 
had a colour like a wax-doll.” 

There was a cold leave-taking at the lych-gate 
presently, and then Captain and Mrs. Stafford stepped 


THE HONOURABLE /ANE. 


231 


into the carriage which had brought the bridegroom 
out, and were driven back to Plymouth. It was not 
a cheerful drive, for the influences of a depressingly 
damp day were upon Dolly by this time ; and finding 
that her newly-made husband was engrossed in deep 
and apparently dark thought she relapsed into silence 
herself, and, lying back in her corner, began to build 
an airy castle of pleasure, founded on what hearsay 
had told her of the doings of the pretty young wives 
of other military men who happened to be well off. 

Suddenly it occurred to her that she had not seen 
any labels put upon her luggage, and she broke the 
silence suddenly by sitting up and asking, — 

‘ ‘ Where are we going, Harry ? ” 

“ I told you the other day that I had taken a house 
in Stoke for six months. I hope you will like it. I 
tried to consult your uncle about it, but he ” 

He paused abruptly, with a burning recollection of 
Dr. Abbot s reply, which had been to the effect that 
the future arrangements of Captain Stafford and his 
wife were matters of profound indifference to him. 

“But I mean where are we going first — for our 
honeymoon ? ” 

“ To the house I spoke of in Stoke.” 

“Good gracious, how dull ! Why won’t you take 
me somewhere nice, Harry.? I thought, of course, 
you’d take me to London. And why didn’t you con- 
sult me instead of consulting my sulky old bear of 
an uncle .? ” 

He disregarded the first part of her speech, and dealt 
only with the second in his answer. 

‘ ‘ Look here, Dolly, I want the truth from you. 
What has made your uncle change from the genial, 
jolly fellow he was to the rather insolent bear he has 
become — to me, at least ? I acceded to his demands 
when he rather authoritatively ordered that you and 
I should become engaged, but he has never been the 
same to me since. He treats me — well, confound 
him, as I have never been treated by any man before.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


232 

He turned his head and looked intently into her eyes 
which shifted uneasily under his gaze, and then he 
added quietly, “You know the reason, and are prob- 
ably at the 'bottom of it. You may as well tell me 
what it is, for I shall find out.’’ 

Dolly stripped her left hand glove off impatiently, 
and looked for moral support at her wedding-ring 
and the half-hoop of large diamonds which guarded 
it. The sight of these gave her confidence. She was 
the “wife” of the man who was suspicious of her 
integrity, and his “wife” she would remain, to be 
externally honoured by him and the world, remain 
unless she was ever silly enough to do something rash 
and forfeit the position. Fortified by this reflection, 
and being perfectly indifferent to what he thought of 
her now, she said, with calm defiance, — 

“If you want tp know the reason of uncle's airs, I 
will tell you ; but I think you had better not want to 
know.” 

‘ ‘ I shall ask him ; he will at least give me a straight- 
forward answer.” 

She laughed. 

‘ ‘ Before he gave it he might say something you 
didn’t like, so I’ll spare your feelings. Well, the fact 
is, when they fell upon me and bullied me for having 
been ‘ indiscreet enough ’ to go for long walks and 
drives into the country with you, and for getting my- 
self 'talked about,’ I told them that both you and I 
had been ‘much more indiscreet than they supposed,’ 
and then uncle swore that you should marry me, and 
called you names.” 

“You falsely accused yourself of loss of virtue, 
and me of loss of honour } ” 

“ If you like to put it in that way — yes.” 

“Good God!” 

He flung himself back in the carriage, and covered 
his face with his hands in a vain endeavour to shut 
out the awful vista that stretched before him, along 
which he would have to go with this woman beside 
him as his wife. She looked at him for a few seconds 


THE HONOURABLE /ANE. 233 

half with curiosity, half with contempt ; then she 
said, — 

“ What does it matter ? No one else will ever know 
that 1 said it, and we can easily drop uncle and aunt, 
/ never want to see them again. " 

But he did not answer her, nor did he speak again 
until the carriage stopped at the entrance to the 
furnished house which he had taken to be his first 
married home. 

The repulsion he had felt for her previously was as 
nothing compared to that which consumed him now, 
when he heard from her own lips how he had been 
entrapped, tricked, deceived and defrauded by her. 
Looking at her young, fair face, her well-opened 
innocent blue eyes, and the almost childish lines of 
her supple little figure, he felt his whole soul rise in 
revolt against the whited sepulchre which concealed 
such a foully scheming soul. That she was false, 
vain, heartless and intensely selfish he had discerned 
with fatal perspicuity from the day he had become 
engaged to her ; but that she had been base enough 
to falsely accuse herself of a fall which she had not 
had, astounded as much as it disgusted him. 

It was all up with any hope of happiness arising 
out of this luckless, loveless, lamentable marriage. 
The most he could do for her and himself was to vow 
that he would always treat her in a way that might 
hoodwink all who knew him into supposing that he 
honoured her. But simultaneously with this vow he 
breathed a prayer, which was that no child of hers 
might ever call him father. 

“The first thing you will do to-morrow will be to 
write to your uncle and make it clear to him that you 
accused me and yourself falsely,’’ was the first com- 
mand he laid upon his newly-made wife, and Dolly 
rebelled against it. 

‘ ‘ I don’t feel like doing it a bit ; what does it mat- 
ter what he thinks now ? We’re married, and there’s 
an end of it.” 

“ It matters this much to me, that I don’t choose 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


234 

that Dr. Abbot shall think me a blackguard any 
longer. You can explain your lie away in any way 
you like, only let him know that it was a lie.” 

‘ ‘ You may tell him if you like, ” 

“Don't you understand that would not be the 
same thing 

“I think you are making a fuss about nothing,’' 
she retorted contemptuously. “ We need never see 
anything more of the Abbots ; it won’t do us any 
good to keep in with them, and it won’t do us any 
harm if they don’t think very highly of us. I don’t 
see why you need care.” 

“ Have you no gratitude, to say nothing of natural 
affection } ” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“ Don’t worry me about them any more. I would 
rather write the letter half-a-dozen times than hear so 
much about it.” 

“Then I trust to you to write it to-morrow,” he 
said. 

Dolly’s first disappointment in her married life was, 
as has been told, being “defrauded,” as she con- 
sidered it, of her honeymoon trip. Her second was 
that her husband had taken a house outside, like any 
“commonplace civilian,” instead of getting married 
quarters. Dolly had indulged in visions of becoming 
the idolised queen of a military salon, and of making 
every man who frequented it, from the colonel down 
to the youngest subaltern, dangerously in love with 
her. The women would then be proportionately jeal- 
ous of her, and her cup of bliss would be full. She 
had also intended to generously show herself a good 
deal in the barrack square and on the tennis-ground 
in ever-varying, beautifully-built frocks and costumes. 
-But these visions were rudely dispelled by the reality. 
The ladies of the regiment called upon her, it is true, 
but they did it with a want of spontaneity and a lack 
of enthusiasm that told its own cruelly lucid tale of 
her being a little off colour. Captain Stafford had, in 
fact, done himself and his wife an evil social turn by 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


235 

perpetrating his matrimonial mistake in the quiet, 
secretive manner in which he had made it. Men 
would have obliterated the dimming shadow of ap- 
parent secrecy from their minds readily enough, but 
gentlewomen would insist upon asking, ‘ ‘ Qui Bono P ” 
at every opportunity ; and there was no reason to 
give, or rather no reason was given. 

Captain and Mrs. Stafford returned all the calls that 
were paid to them with punctilious promptitude. It 
was a period to be lived through, and Harry Stafford 
lived through it as fast as he could. He saw and felt 
tiny shades in manner and thorns in speech that 
passed unnoticed before Dolly’s supercilious eyes, 
and fell unheeded on her indifferent ears. If he had 
been blessed with one grain of love for her, it would 
have increased and multiplied during this period, for 
Dolly was, from the artistic point of view, a perfect 
study. Secure in the possession of a husband who 
was coveted by every girl who knew him, of dresses 
that were coveted by every woman who saw them, 
of unfaded youth, of a face and form that were easily 
arranged into beauty, and of a temperament that 
never allowed its owner to be flurried, hurried, discon- 
certed or put into a round hole when a square one 
suited her better, Dolly “fetched” so much admiring 
attention from the majority of men that it was incom- 
prehensible to her that her husband should remain in 
the minority. 

He felt sorry for himself that he should be unable 
to be as other men in this respect. If he could only 
have blotted out the memory of her multifarious de- 
ceptions from his mind, and started afresh, taking her 
as she seemed to be, and was, at this time, he would 
have been an infinitely happier man. But he could 
not bury his unsavoury dead. He was perpetually 
remembering that just “ so and so ” had Dolly looked 
and spoken when she had been leading him on to 
make himself the idiot he was now ready to proclaim 
himself. 

The remembrance of the falsehood she had told her 


236 the ho JVO c/e able /A'NE. 

uncle stood between him and any tender thoughts of 
her. He saw trickery in all her words and deeds, and 
fancied that she was as transparent a fraud to others 
as he had himself discovered her to be. Altogether, 
the outlook at the commencement of life with his wild 
flower was as discouraging as his worst enemy could 
have wished it to be. 


CHAPTER mxvm . 

ONLY A MAN. 

Both Lady Roydmore and Jane were under the spell 
which draws women irresistibly within the radius 
wherein sights and sounds that are odious to them are 
rife. Each knew that the sight of Captain Stafford, 
either happy or miserable, in his new and honourable 
estate of matrimony would be grievous to them. Yet 
this knowledge did not prevent either of them from 
doing all in their respective powers to work their way 
back to Plymouth, with an appearance of ease, and in 
the natural sequence of things. 

Forgetful of the disinclination she had once felt for 
Jane’s companionship and continual presence, and 
regardless of all the excellent reasons she had once 
assigned for not asking for it, Helen now exerted all 
her powers of persuasion, pleading and argument to 
induce her step-daughter to stay with her altogether, 
instead of going back to the flat drudgery of a gover- 
ness’ life. But Jane preferred the flat drudgery to the 
possibility of being at some future time merely a toler- 
ated fixture in Lady Roydmore’s establishment. 

“I should have to ask you for things just as if I 
were ten years old ; and the day would come when it 
would bore you to have to supply all my little wants. 
I shall stay where I am until the little Abbots don’t 
want me any longer, or until it occurs to Florence to 

let me have some of my own money ” 

“ Or until you marry ? ” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


237 

“ I am not likely to do that now. I don’t meet men 
of my own class, and 1 am not in love with any one 
out of my class, so, you see, I am spared all tempta- 
tion of that kind. ”’ 

‘ ' Dr. Abbot’s new partner has not caught your heart 
on the rebound } ” 

“ My heart has never rebounded. Wherever it has 
gone — if it has gone anywhere, which I haven’t ad- 
mitted, you know — there it will stay.” 

Helen’s pretty eyes glistened with tears for a 
moment or two as she said, — 

“ I wish I could make your life a happier one. A 
fortnight ago I thought I was going to play the part 
of fairy godmother, and get you what I felt was the 
dearest and best thing on earth to you. Now I can 
do nothing but wish you to blot out the very memory 
of that thing. It was never worthy of you ” 

“ Let us go out and climb about on the cliffs,” Jane 
interrupted, “and don’t let us talk about the worth or 
the worthiness of anything or any one. We are all of 
us mistaken about every one else, I think. You don’t 
think very highly of Florence, I know, but your old 
friends the Wyndhams, who are, you say, saints upon 
earth, think her a creature too pure and good for 
human nature’s daily food. We were all very angry 
when you were going to marry papa, but your marry- 
ing him made him very happy, poor man ; and your 
kindness to me makes me feel ashamed of ever having 
been angry with you. Yet you are the same ‘you’ 
now as then ; so it must be that my judgment was 
wrong then, or is wrong now. It’s the same about 
everything. There’s always a reverse to the shield, 
if we could only see it.” 

“Nothing will ever make me think better of Dolly 
than I do now. When a man like Harry Stafford 
throws himself away, one is bound to hate the woman 
on whom he is wasted. ” 

“But is he wasted upon her.?” Jane asked, half- 
laughingly, half-seriously. “ We are angry with Dolly 
because we think he is too good for her. But is he too 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


238 

good for her ? Perhaps there are some men who are 
raging against him, and saying that ‘ Dolly is 
wasted. ’ After all, I suppose a grown-up m'an knows 
what he likes best ; and ha, must have liked Dolly 
best, or he wouldn’t have chosen her. ’’ 

“ That sounds generous and impartial ; but if you 
thought that he really liked her best, you wouldn't 
say it. Jane, you want some new dresses. I shall 
think that you are going to pose as a martyr to the 
cause of your sister ; if you don’t let me give you 
some pretty frocks. You’re getting to stoop a little, 
too, and you are wearing gloves that are a size too 
large for you, and your hair is done in the fashion 
of last year. While you do these things, 1 shall not 
believe that you are anything but a disappointed girl. 
You may be young and pretty still if you like, but 
you are letting yourself lapse into old girlism and 
dowdyism. We are all pretty much alike. If we 
haven’t the incentive of trying to win a man's admi- 
ration before us, we pretend to think Jenny Wren’s 
is the better part. Then, after a time the part is 
found to be a sombrely monotonous one, and we 
long to be re-cast for another. And then it’s too late. 
Don’t give up all desire for brightness while you still 
have it in your power to be brilliant. You have it in 
you to be so very happy. It seems dreadful to me 
that you should resign yourself to being merely 
‘ contented ’ all your life.” 

Jane’s colour rose and her eyes sparkled. She 
clasped her hands together, and stretched them down 
in front of her as Lady Roydmore spoke. Every 
drop of the warm, holiday blood in her tingled and 
leapt under the influence of Helen’s words. How 
little Helen knew, how little any one ever would 
know, of the wealth of hot feeling, of passionate 
desire for excitement, luxury, beauty and pleasure 
which Jane had been fighting against and keeping 
down for years ! Her own generous impulses, and 
the supreme selfishness of others — more especially of 
Florence — had always forced her to take a hindmost 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


239 

place. She had not liked the ugly dresses and the 
comfortless rooms in the old days at Bath ; but 
Florence had decreed that these things should be her 
portion ; and rather than let the rest of the family 
know how thoroughly she had found Florence out, 
she (Jane) endured them passively, but not patiently. 
She had not liked sacrificing herself and her money 
to the greedy needs of her unscrupulous sister later 
on. But no one else thought Florence worthy of a 
single effort being made on her behalf, and Jane was 
determined not to endorse the general judgment. 
All her relations, and the majority of her friends and 
acquaintances, had prophesied evil things concerning 
her experiment of going out as a governess, and so 
she had fought against her own dislike of the position 
in order that these prophecies might not be fulfilled. 
She had been, and still was, in unconscious revolt 
against all the overwhelming influences of her life ; 
at the same time, she would not oppose herself to 
them. She allowed herself to be overwhelmed, and 
was mutely, but hotly, indignant with every one 
who attempted to act as either obstructionist or 
helper. 

Just now, though she refused to be guided by 
Lady Roydmore's counsel and wishes, she was 
strongly inclined to succumb to their influence, to 
give up warring against her own tastes and impulses 
and take such ease and pleasure as might fall to her 
portion in a home with Helen. But the reflection 
that by so doing she would forfeit the independence 
that gave her the right to continue to offer up sacri- 
fices to Florence deterred her, and caused her to stub- 
bornly determine to continue along the dreary and 
dull path she had chosen to tread. 

But her determination was upset from a very un- 
expected quarter. During her absence, Mr. Barker had 
made a confidante of, and won the sympathies of, his 
senior partner’s wife. IMrs. Abbot was one of those 
excellent women who are never happier than when 
paddling about in the turbulent waters of that treach- 


240 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


erous sea on which young- love is perpetually em- 
barking. Having got over the tew mild qualms she 
had once experienced on her own account while Dr. 
Abbot had been weighing love in the balance against 
prudence, and her daughters being still too young to 
cause her any fitful anxiety, she was always ready 
to listen to a recital of any one’s amorous dreams. 
The alternately, hopeful and dismal visions of Mr. 
Barker had a special interest for her founded on a 
solid and wholesome basis. She knew that popular 
feeling is in favour of a married doctor, and as Mr. 
Barker’s interests were now identical with those of 
her husband’s, she made up her mind to help forward 
the young Irish doctor’s with all the forces of her 
heart, head and hand. 

Accordingly, she wrote to Miss Herries, telling her 
that, as a woman and a mother, a wife, friend, 
Christian, and several other admirable things, she 
could not reconcile it to her conscience to being ac- 
cessory to the torture which Jane’s presence would 
inflict upon Mr Barker unless she (Jane) would listen 
favourably to his suit, and look upon him as her 
future husband. Then, by way of adding strength 
to the arguments she had already advanced, she 
wrote : — 

“I have always considered you such a sensible 
girl, that I will not allow myself to believe a sugges- 
tion which Dolly Stafford is very fond of throwing out, 
namely, that her husband once led you on to think 
he cared for you, and that you are bitterly disap- 
pointed in consequence of his having married Dolly. 
My dear child, if such is the case, bring pride to your 
aid, and cast him out from your heart and memory, 
and do not give my spiteful little niece the ill-natured 
triumph of seeing that she has been able to blight a 
much better girl than herself. ” 

Jane’s answer to this was brief and definite : — 

‘ ‘ As you won’t have me back unless I get engaged 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


241 


to Mr. Barker, and I should never think of engaging 
myself to a man who got a woman to propose for him, 
will you kindly send the luggage I have left behind 
me to the railway station ? Lady Roydmore and I 
are going back to Plymouth for a little time, so Mrs. 
Stafford will have an opportunity of triumphing over 
my disappointment and dejected appearance. I hope 
I shall see her husband, as I shall always like him 
better than any one I have ever met.” 

When Mrs. Abbot read this letter, she was not angry, 
but she was very much hurt. She realised now that 
it was too late, that she had done the cause of her 
friend Mr. Barker more harm than good by the endeav- 
our she had made to mould it after the fashion he 
desired. In fact, the insertion of her matronly finger 
had ruined his pie, and this thought gave her much 
disquiet. 

But her distress on this point was as cowslip unto 
oxlip as compared with the sore vexation she felt at 
the bold and open way in which Miss Herries pro- 
claimed her liking and preference for a man who not 
only had not chosen her, but had chosen some one 
else. Mrs. Abbot’s thoughts and feelings ha(>always 
run in safe, narrow and blameless grooves. Accord- 
ing to the tenets of the creed which she had learned 
in her youth, and by whose articles she had rigidly 
guided herself during the whole of her non-adventu- 
rous pilgrimage, it was a woman’s part to love her love 
with an “a” because he asked her, and never to ad- 
mit the existence of any stronger sentiment than the 
mildest friendly feeling for any man who had not mani- 
fested a readiness to get the licence and the little bar 
of gold. It savoured of audacious disregard of discre- 
tion and what she called “true feminine dignity” 
that a girl should tell the truth, and avow that she in- 
tensely liked a man who had not asked her to do so, or 
offered to give her the legal right to recognise his at- 
tractive qualities. It savoured of immorality, she felt, 
with a shudder, when, as in this case, the man mis- 
16 


242 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


guidedly appreciated was married ta another woman. 

The trials and temptations of this wicked world 
were chiefly known to Mrs. Abbot through the medi- 
umship of books, or from sketchy hearsay. She had 
quite a touchingly undefiled faith in the old legendary 
dangers that beset weak womanhood from vile man 
on every side, and this in spite of her never having 
consciously come in contact with a gay deceiver in 
the whole course of her career. Appalling pitfalls 
must be dug, she felt, for the feet of a girl who could 
so far forget maiden modesty as to write of another 
woman s husband in the terms Jane had used about 
Captain Stafford ; and, reprehensively as Dolly had 
behaved, her aunt thought there was something even 
more iniquitous in what she regarded as Jane’s cold- 
blooded determination to court danger by risking a 
meeting with him. What precise form the danger 
was to take Mrs. Abbot did not attempt to define. 
She would have recoiled with horror from the idea of 
a climax that would have seemed possible to a more 
worldly-wise woman. The vapoury perils that lurked 
in the grateful glances and warm hand-pressures a 
man gives to a woman whom he knows regards him 
well and warmly, were terrible enough for her to 
evolve and contemplate. With all her heart she pitied 
Jane for what the consequences might be, as much as 
she blamed her for the indiscreet frankness with which 
she proclaimed the feeling that might bring those con- 
sequences about. It was only natural, being what she 
was, that she should turn and babble of these feelings 
and fears to one so ready to share them as Mr. Barker. 
The result of their many conferences was that the sub- 
ject took form and substance rapidly, for Barker men- 
tioned what Mrs. Abbot said and thought and feared 
to two or three of his own trusted and intimate 
friends who in turn, mentioned it to others. Accord- 
ingly, before Miss Kerries had been m Plymouth a 
week, or had ever seen Captain Stafford, it was good- 
naturedly observed that it “ was a pity their names 
should be coupled together, ” and that, ‘ ‘ really, being 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


243 

a newly-married man, Captain Stafford ought to be 
thoroughly ashamed of himself ” 

In ignorance of these little odorous breaths of scan- 
dal, Jane acquiesced, with an eagerness that was born 
partly of pain, and partly of pleasure, when Lady 
Roydmore proposed that they should, for Harry’s sake 
and by way of showing him how exaltedly superior 
they were to all petty feeling and jealousy, call upon 
his wife. No rumour had reached these birds of pas- 
sage as to the stand-off attitude and looks askance to 
which Dolly had been treated. But Dolly fully cred- 
ited them with having heard of her non-success 
socially, and with their call of courtesy being made in 
the hope of being able to gloat over her disappoint- 
ment. 

Her house was very pretty, and her dress very per- 
fect, and she herself was glowing with the excitement 
of baffling what she believed to be their ill-natured 
curiosity, and also with gratified vanity. For it may 
be told that if.Captain Stafford was indifferent or blind 
to his wife’s charms, other men were not so, and 
Dolly had quite a dashing little following of those 
who found the meretricious, sparkling little married 
woman, who never bothered them by the display of 
deep feeling, much 'safer and more attractive than the 
prettier girls with whose “people ” the day of reckon- 
ing would have to come if they indulged in gay 
fooling. 

Under the influence of these various feelings, Dolly 
was glowing when she came in. She greeted her 
visitors with the assured self-possession that was one 
of her characteristics, drawing a sharp hard line 
between the cordial equality she displayed towards 
Lady Roydmore, and the air of tolerant, affable 
superiority to which she treated Jane. 

“I expect my husband in every moment He will 
be glad to see you, I am sure. Lady Roydmore. He 
has often spoken about you, and always so warmly.” 

“Your husband and I are friends of several years’ 
standing,” Helen said coldly. Then she added, “I 


244 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


hope we shall see him ; I want to wish him happi- 
ness. ” 

Dolly shrugged her shoulders. 

“He will' be as happy as most people are who, 
having got everything they want, fancy they would 
like something else better,” she said scornfully. 
“How is my aunt. Miss Herries.? What has made 
her amiable enough to release you from the drudgery 
of teaching my dreadfully tiresome cousins to-day ? ” 

“ She has released me altogether.” 

“Then I suppose the report I have heard is true, 
and you are going to be married.?” Dolly interrupted, 
as Captain Stafford opened the door and came into 
their midst before he saw who his wife’s visitors 
were. 

In the little confusion that arose, Jane had no 
opportunity of rebutting the charge which Dolly had 
so deftly made against her. The attempt to offer 
any explanation would have been ponderous and ill- 
timed. Moreover, she forgot herself in the absorbing 
interest of this moment of meeting with him again. 
He looked harassed and seemed constrained, but for 
all that he was still the man among men in her eyes. 
It was evident that their presence in his house gave 
him no pleasure, and he expressed no desire for the 
continuance of any kind of intercourse with them. In 
fact, these two women who had loved him very 
wildly, and still loved him very weakly, would have 
felt rather chagrined had they been able to fathom 
his thoughts, which ran something in this wise, — 

“ Tve made a confounded ass of myself ; but as I 
am married, why the devil won’t they let me alone to 
make the best of it .? ” 

At the same time, an opposition sentiment stirred 
him. The vainer and more carnal part of him was 
glad that their interest in him was so undiminished, 
that it had conquered their essentially human repug- 
nance to seeing him m these dismally altered circum- 
stances of his life. 

After all, he was only a man ! 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


245 


CHAPTER «XV1®. 

RUCKS AHEAD. 

For three years the Honourable Jane Herries had led 
the exciting, but not exhilarating, life of a shuttlecock 
between those battledores, inclination and circum- 
stances. Her sister Florence had obeyed the dictum 
of always considering most highly the greatest good 
of the greatest number to the letter. But, then, 
Florence believed the greatest number to be number 
one. She had considered herself so exclusively, in 
fact, that she had omitted to remember Jane at all. 
Consequently, Jane found herself regarded as a selfish, 
greedy and unjust oppressor whenever she ventured 
to suggest that, at least, she might have a modest 
share in the goods with which she had enriched Mrs. 
Graves. 

“ It’s such a short-sighted policy,” the latter 
argued, when dire necessity compelled Jane to ap- 
proach the obnoxious subject. “If you deprive me 
of any of the poor little means I have of making my- 
self alluring and attractive, how can you expect me 
to settle well in life And if I don’t settle well, 
it will serve you quite right if I am a burden 
upon my friends for the rest of my days. The 
Wyndhams are nearly all that I could wish them to be, 
but there are lots of things that I have to do and to 
get that I don’t wish them to know about. If you’re 
only reasonably patient, you shall be rewarded in 
time, Jane ; but you destroy all the grace of your 
generosity towards me by reminding me of it. You’re 
so inconsistent. You used to say you loved your 
independence, and were proud of being able to give 
music and painting lessons,” 


246 the honourable JANE. 

‘‘I give such atrociously bad ones.” 

“That’s your own look-out. Why don’t you im- 
prove yourself, and give better ones.? I am really 
afraid that you’re very unconscientious. Indeed, I 
know you are, or you would not contemplate wreck- 
ing me after having rescued me from drowning once. 
Just as my object is nearly accomplished, too ! Just 
as I am on the brink of doing splendidly for myself.” 

“You have been on the brink of doing that so often, 
Flo, but all the men have escaped you.^ ^ 1 suppose 
it’s a man you’re counting on again, isn’t it?” 

Florence nodded her head complacently. 

“Is it Mr. Wyndham? Oh, Flo, you’re not going 
to marry that dear old man and make him miserable, 
are you ? ” 

“ Certainly not ; that dear old man won’t give me 
the chance. ‘ But there’s a dear young man in the 
family who’s as weak as water about women. He’s 
been playing the fool with a married woman, and half 
broken the moral hearts of his uncle and aunt. But 
now he sees the folly of his ways. He has chucked 
the woman, and his uncle is going to settle a good 
income on him now, and leave him all the money by 
and by if he will marry sensibly. He ivill marry 
sensibly, for he will marry me ! ” 

“Who is the married woman ? ” Jane asked reluc- 
tantly. She knew intuitively what the answer would 
be before she asked the question, and from the depths 
of her heart she pitied the husband of that woman 
with whom young Wyndham had airily played the 
fool. 

“She’s a Mrs. Stafford. It’s not a bad case, you 
know, at least not a found-out bad case. She had 
got him under her thumb, because he had been in 
love with her before she married, and she kept him 
there rather cleverly in a semi-platonic way that 
didn’t give any one the right to send her to Coventry, 
-but that has been rather expensive for him. Of course 
my two old dears look upon the mildest flirtation of 
that sort as one of the seven deadly sins, so they’ve 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


247 

bribed him into promising to be a good boy, and he 
has persuaded himself that he has broken with Mrs. 
Stafford for her sake more than his own. Oh ! I re- 
member ! You went sadly for the love of a certain 
Captain Stafford at one time ! I wonder if this is 
his wife .? Is he married.? I have forgotten.” 

“ He is married, but this lady is not likely to be his 
wife. ” 

“Is she not .? Tm rather sorry for that, for perhaps 
she will not carry on so guardedly in future, and her 
husband may get a divorce ; and if he was your old 
love, he might turn to you in his tribulation. I should 
really like to find out for you. Did you ever see 
your friend’s wife .? I can show you a photograph of 
Mr. Wyndham’s Mrs. Stafford ; he sent it up to his 
aunt to show her what an angelic creature his Dolly 
was. ” 

“ Dolly ! ” 

“ That’s her name ; and I see by your horrified ex- 
pression that she is your Captain Stafford’s wife. ” 

‘ ‘ Poor fellow ! ” 

The words were commonplace enough, but they 
came from a heart that was being wrung to torture 
by a paroxysm of pity for the man who had cast her 
aside for this woman who had now dishonoured him. 

“ I don’t know that I think him very much to be 
pitied,” Mrs. Graves said carelessly. “ He’s a hand- 
somer fellow than Wyndham, and a more fascinating 
fellow ; but I suppose he didn’t think it necessary to 
exercise any of his fascinations on his wife. Young 
Wyndham is very staunch to her. He declares she is 
‘as guileless as an infant,’ and I pretend to believe 
him. When he marries me, he will find me very 
sensibly ready to be on very friendly terms with his 
Dolly ! ” 

“What a revolting resolution, unless you do be- 
lieve him ! ” Jane said hotly. “But you don’t mean 
it, do you .? You only say it to disgust me.? ” 

“ What is there disgusting in my admitting that I 
am prepared to be very acquiescent .? Do you think, 


248 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


even if I loved Paul Wyndham — which I don’t — that 
I should be idiotic enough ever to show jealousy of 
him? When once a woman does that, she loses all 
power over a man to whom she is legally bound. If 
she isn’t married to him, she may venture to do a little 
of the pouting and reproachful business if he doesn’t 
happen to be tired of her, for he has the fear of losing 
her before his eyes. But his wife must stay and bear 
anything and everything, unless he knocks her down 
and elopes with someone else. Now, I never mean 
to goad him into doing either one or the other. So I 
shall see only what he wishes me to see, and be very 
friendly with Mrs. Stafford.” 

“ Don’t you think that it’s just possible he may not 
care to marry you even on such easy terms as you 
propose ? ” 

“That possibility wouldn’t occur to you if you 
knew even a very little of his character. He likes 
nearly every woman he meets, and loves a great 
many. Mrs. Stafford, he imagines, has been the love 
of his life, and the one woman in the world for him, 
because she has always impressed upon him that her 
husband is an Othello, who will round upon both 
Wyndham and herself unexpectedly some fine day. 
This has given the zest it wouldn’t have had other- 
wise for Master Paul, therefore he has what he calls 
‘stuck to her,’ on account of the elements of danger, 
impropriety and opposition. But there is something 
he likes even better than braving these elements, and 
that is an easy time. It’s not feasible to have a 
thoroughly good and easy time without money ; so, 
in order to get money, he will yield to his uncle’s 
prejudices, profess to relinquish his pursuit of Mrs. 
Stafford, and offer me his hand, name and fortune. 
I shall be very well contented to accept these with- 
out being exacting about that portion of his sen- 
suously imaginative nature which he calls his 
‘ heart. 

“ Where are the Staffords ? ” Jane asked abruptly. 

“ Here, in London. They have a pretty little 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


249 

house in Lower Belgrave Street. He has left the 
service, you know ; or don’t you know anything about 
his career.? They are notoriously unhappy, so if you 
meet him you may play the part of consoler without 
compunction. He let out to Lady Roydmore that he 
was tricked and harried into marrying his Dolly, and 
that he loved you best all the time.” 

“ Don’t say any more about that.” 

“ Why not .? It’s always gratifying to a woman to 
hear that a man has loved her best, in spite of his 
having married some one else.” 

“It’s a dangerous gratification; at least it might 
be dangerous if I saw him again. It might make me 
show that I was sorry for him, and thei^ he would 
think me a fool for my pains.” 

“ Well, I think you’re a fool because your emotions 
are genuine. If I were in your case, I should pretend 
to feel a lot of things about such an interesting man 
as Captain Stafford. But the display of my sympa- 
thies would never injure me, however warmly he re- 
ciprocated. Unfortunately for yourself, you have a 
way of' saying what you mean, and meaning what 
you say. So, as you are a prude at heart, perhaps it 
will be just as well if you never see Captain Stafford 
again. ” 

“ Am I a prude at heart .? ” Jane said meditatively ; 
and even as she spoke, she was thinking how much 
better it would be for her and for him, if, now that 
she knew he had loved her best, they never met 
again. 

Mrs. Graves’ instinctive insight into young Mr. 
Wyndham’s character was proved soon to be singu- 
larly correct. He loved luxury infinitely more than 
he did the smiles of Mrs. Stafford. That lady had 
hardly received his written assurance that he “loved 
her so dear that he only could leave her ” before the 
rumour of his engagement to the lovely young widow, 
Mrs. Graves, was wafted abroad. Dolly, though a 
little nettled at the desertion of a man who had been 


250 


THE HO ATO (/TABLE JANE. 


slavishly devoted to her whenever he was in her pres- 
ence, was far too prudently conscious of what was 
due to herself to betray any of the chagrin she felt, 
eA^en to her renegade lover. Her letter in reply to 
his was couched in terms of the friendliest warmth, 
and not a single sting lurked in one of her neatly- 
turned sentences. It was difficult to refrain from 
dealing him a sharp stab while she was smarting 
under the blow which his infirmity of purpose had 
dealt to her. But she did refrain from writing a single 
word which savoured either of retaliation or vindic- 
tiveness. She expressed a hope that the friendly re- 
lations which had existed between them would be 
sanctioned and shared by his wife, and wished him a 
larger share of happiness in his married lot than had 
fallen to the share of her ‘ ‘ unappreciated, neglected 
self” He was so touched by the sweet resignation 
she displayed in her renunciation of him, that he 
testified afresh to the guilelessness of her nature and 
character to his uncle and aunt, and finally persuaded 
them to make amends for the wrong they had done 
her, in deeming her a “married flirt,” by calling 
upon and making innocent-hearted efforts to cultivate 
her acquaintance, and gain a further knowledge of 
her true worth. 

Florence smilingly encouraged these efforts, and 
gave her future husband to understand that if a fresh 
intimacy was cemented between his quondam en- 
slaver and himself, that intimacy, encouraged as it 
was by his uncle and Aunt Dorothy, would be warmly 
sanctioned and approved of by generous Florence 
herself 

“ I can rise superior to all petty jealousy, Paul,” she 
said, when he half-apologetically ventured to express 
a hope that she “would like Mrs. Stafford,” in whom 
he emphatically assured her there was no harm ; none 
in the world. 

“ I can rise superior to all petty jealousy, and per- 
fectly understand the existence of a very strong friend- 
ship between a man and a woman without meanly 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


251 

suspecting them of anything wrong. Indeed, I have 
such a friendship with a man myself.” 

Paul Wyndham smiled faintly, and not by any 
means approvingly, when she told him this. Pure as 
he professed to consider his compact with Dolly Staf- 
ford to be, he had not the slightest intention of per- 
mitting a similar one to be entered into by his wife and 
any man. However, it would be time enough to put 
his foot down and settle that subject when he could 
do so with marital authority. There was no harm in 
his worshipping the ground on which Dolly stood, 
and thinking that his rights were infringed if she be- 
stowed any of the time and attentions he coveted 
upon her husband. But he was determined that there 
should not be even the appearance of harm in his 
wife’s conduct with any “ old friend ” of her own. In 
fact, he could not emulate Florence’s expressed mag- 
nanimity, for a demon of exceedingly mean jealousy 
was ready to enter in and take possession of his soul 
on the very smallest provocation. Accordingly, when 
she confessed to having such a friendship with a man 
herself, he only smiled faintly, and registered a silent 
vow to nip that friendship, whether he should find it 
to be in full bloom, or only in the bud. 

Meantime, the preparations for the marriage went 
on with brilliant rapidity, and the old uncle and aunt 
vied with each other in their lavish munificence to the 
bride-elect. As Dolly Stafford had neither any delicacy 
of feeling nor scruples of conscience to combat, she 
made herself intensely useful and accommodating to 
the sensible young woman, who was so superior to 
the petty meanness of jealousy, at this juncture. 
And in consequence of this diplomatic amiability of 
hers, a social intercourse was established, in which 
Jane Herries became eventually involved, and against 
her instincts, judgment and deep sense of honour, she 
met Captain Stafford as a friend again. 

It was patent to her very soon that he was a miser- 
able man. Miserable in his marriage, rniserable in 
the sickening knowledge he had that his wife despised 


252 the mono UR a bl e j a ne. 

him for the fatuous way in which he had allowed 
himself to be deceived and entrapped by her ; above all, 
miserable in the profound conviction he had, that never 
a gleam of real love-light would ever brighten his 
lonely, discontented, disappointed existence. Badly 
as he thought of Dolly, despicable as he knew her to 
be, he had been true to her, to honour and him- 
self, as if she had been a real helpmeet and noble wife 
to him. But now suddenly he was confronted with a 
fresh trial and an awful danger, for once more he was 
thrown, through no fault or design of his own, in con- 
tact familiarly, with a woman he had loved passion- 
ately, who was well worthy of that passionate love, 
and who had suffered him to discover that she had 
returned it. 


CHAPTER }gg£Bi. V 1 1 . 

A SMALL BEGINNING. 

“ Coming out as a peacemaker, a healing medium 
between husband and wife, are you, Jane.? 

Florence was the speaker ; Florence, looking charm- 
ing in a blue and fawn-colour tea-gown, with some 
rare old lace drawn from one of Miss Wyndham’s 
apparently inexhaustible stores billowing round her 
pretty throat and down the front of the dress ; 
Florence, exultant in the prospect of making a bril- 
liant marriage on the following day with a man to 
whom she was so profoundly indifferent, that the idea 
of his ‘ ‘ amusing' himself ” with another woman was a 
relief to her. 

“ I am playing the part unconsciously, for I don’t 
know any husbands and wives who are at strife just 
now. Perhaps you will give me some work in that 
line before long,” she added, with a laugh. 

She was feeling lighter-hearted than she had felt for 
years, and she was refraining from calling herself to 
account for this exaltation of spirit. Perhaps it was 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


253 

owing to the fact that Florence s marriage would lift 
the burden of hard work from her shoulders which 
had been laid upon them for years; for successful 
Florence had promised to give Jane back her own 
again, now that the Wyndhams were going to supply 
her (Florence) with all that she imagined her heart 
could ever desire. 

‘ ‘ Oh, but you are playing the part very prettily and 
successfully. If you’ll sit down and take off that 
hideous dust-cloak, I’ll reveal you to yourself. Jane, 
why will you persist in wearing clothes that don't 
become you } ” 

“ If I answered that question truthfully, you would 
say I was ‘ungenerous.’ Don’t look at my cloak ; 
reveal me to myself without delay.” 

“Listen, then. Mrs. Stafford was here yesterday, 
lauding you to the skies. She says since Captain 
Stafford and she have renewed their acquaintance 
with you, life has worn a different aspect for them 
both. He is ever so much kinder to her, and better 
tempered at home ; consequently, she is happier, and 
so studies to please him more. And it’s all owing to 
you, she says.” 

“Owing to me? Ridiculous! I have seen Cap- 
tain Stafford two or three times, and exchanged per- 
haps a dozen sentences with him.” 

“But you have impressed him with a sense of your 
being rather a good and noble sort of person, Mrs. 
Stafford says, so he wants you to be a friend to her.” 

“That’s an invention of Dolly’s to further some 
private end of her own. Captain Stafford is the last 
person in the world to utter such mawkish, senti- 
mental twaddle. He knows his wife never liked me ; 
he knows I never liked his wife. He would never be 
so feeble as to express a wish to bring us together.” 

“ She has improved very much since her marriage, 
Paul Wyndhamsays ; become much more intellectual 
and refined.” 

“Does he attribute the improvement to his in- 
fluence, or her husband’s ? ” 


254 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“ He does Captain Stafford the justice to say that 
he’s one of those fine, gallant fellows who would 
shame a woman out of being sly and mean. ” 

“Mr. Wyndham thinks she was sly and mean, does 
he ? Well, I think she is so still. What can her 
motive be for wishing to set up an apparent intimacy 
with me? What is yours for trying to further her 
wish ? ” 

“ I never dive into other people’s motives, and I 
never analyse my own,” Florence said carelessly. 
“ Now, let me show you your dress. It’s a dream — 
much prettier than the one you wore at my first 
wedding. You’ll look a dream in it, too ; for you 
also are much prettier than you were at my first 
wedding. Won’t you return the compliment by say- 
ing the same of me ? ” 

‘ ‘ I think that, if possible, you are vainer now than 
you were then,” Jane replied ; but she said it so 
affectionately that there was no hidden sting in the 
words. 

Then Florence unfolded some of the glorious ap- 
parel which was to be worn by both of them on the 
following day ; and presently old Miss 'Wyndham 
came in with some more wedding presents which 
had just arrived ; and, in the pleasurable excitement 
of inspecting these things, Jane forgot Captain Staf- 
ford and his wife for a time. 

As soon as Florence became Mrs. Wyndham, 
junior, she, with a flourish of moral trumpets, gen- 
erously relinquished Jane’s income into the latter’s 
own hands again. Jane, in turn, relinquished her 
pupils, and blossomed out into renewed youth and 
good looks under the beautifying influences of im- 
munity from anxiety, becoming dresses, and the 
knowledge that she had it in her power now to live 
where she liked and as she liked, without let or 
hindrance from either friends or relations. 

Now that their eldest sister had done so uncom- 
monly well for herself, the Roydmores were ready 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


255 

to forgive and forget all her peccadilloes in the past. 
At the same time, they roused themselves to feel and 
express sentiments of profound approbation for the 
spirit of generous sacrifice which Jane had shown 
for her sister’s sake. The desire to* intermeddle with 
her management of her own manner of life was 
repressed at once by Jane when young Lady Royd- 
more hinted at the advisability of her husband’s un- 
married sister taking up her abode with some Herries 
relations in Scotland, of good position and limited 
means, who had shown a disposition to remind 
Roydmore that the head of the house of Herries 
might reasonably be expected to aid the lesser mem- 
bers of it. The remuneration which Jane could offer 
them for the privilege of living in their bracing 
northern atmosphere and healthily unexciting family 
circle, would rank as a benefit conferred on them by 
Roydmore himself, and put a stop to reminders of 
consanguinity, and applications for his interest in the 
various quarters in which the persevering sons of the 
family desired to push their way. These reminders 
and applications were particularly distasteful to young 
Lady Roydmore. Her husband was never troubled 
with any similar ones from her side of the house. 
Therefore, it behoved him to save her from further 
disturbance in this matter by using his authority over 
his sister, and consigning her to the care of these 
impecunious members of the clan. 

However, Jane having been permitted to enjoy the 
sweets of liberty during her period of poverty, resolved 
to discover how they tasted, now that she was com- 
paratively affluent. She set Roydmore’s authority 
aside easily, with the remark that she would not 
burden him with the weight there would be on his 
conscience if she threw in her lot with one of these 
brawny, young, impecunious cousins in a moment 
of madness, and then came to an untimely end through 
being overwhelmed by dullness and duty. The dis- 
cussion as to her future arrangements was briefly 
concluded by her declaring, — 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


256 

‘•I shall live, as I have been living for the last three 
years, without a chaperone. The only difference will 
be that I shall have pretty rooms in a nice position, 
instead of ugly rooms in an unpleasant one, and that 
I shall spend my time with friends who like me, 
instead of with people who look upon me as distinctly 
inferior to themselves, though they pay me for teach- 
ing them — or for trying to teach them — something 
they don’t know. Very likely 1 shall marry some 
day ” 

“Never, if you live in such an unconventional 
Bohemian way,” Lady Roydmore interrupted. 

“Oh, don’t despair,” Jane laughed. 

“Then it will be beneath you.” 

“Indeed, you need not fear that. I think as much 
of intellect, morality, honour, courage, and character 
as you do. Whoever possesses these qualities is my 
equal, and I shall never marry a man who does not 
possess them.” 

There was a ring of sadness in the tone in which 
she concluded her sentence. Captain Stafford was 
the only man she knew who possessed all the attri- 
butes and fulfilled all the requirements of which she 
spoke. And Captain Stafford was tied up and bound 
down to Dolly. Oh, the pity of it ! 

She very soon settled down into the groove which 
she had indicated to her brother and sister-in-law as 
being the one she intended to move in. The furnish- 
ing and decoration of the pretty rooms, in a nice 
situation which she had selected, gave her full oc- 
cupation for a time, and her friends grew and mul- 
tiplied exceedingly. Mrs. Stafford strove hard to 
become one of these friends. But, though she sought 
Miss Herries with flattering zeal and perseverance, 
the latter refused to fall to the flattery. She felt that, 
whatever motive actuated Dolly in seeking her, and 
being seemingly unconscious of the lack of respon- 
siveness in Jane’s manner, it was not either affection 
for or interest in Jane herself. What it was remained 
to be proved or seen. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 257 

'‘May I bring my husband to see you?” Dolly 
asked, one day, ‘ ‘ 1 have been describing your lovely, 
little rooms to him, and you know how artistic he is! 
He wants to see them. ’ 

“Certainly, I shall be very happy,” Miss Herries 
said reluctantly. The mere thought of him, much 
more the sight and sound of him, was sufficient to 
detach Jane's interest from everything and every other 
person. She grew restless — idly restless and dis- 
traught — even when she suffered her thoughts to dwell 
on him too frequently. There was no salt, no savour 
in the society of others when the memory of him inter- 
vened between her and them. She felt prophetically 
that the pretty rooms, in the adornment of which she 
had taken such pleasure, would never be the same to 
her without him if once he came. He would admire 
and praise and touch things ; and afterwards there 
would be more pain than pleasure to her in regarding 
them when he was not by to admire and praise and 
touch them with her. Better to do without the one 
brilliant gleam of sunshine which his presence would 
be to her, than to have it to contrast with the drear 
fogginess which his absence would create. The 
knowledge that it would be thus with her, if once she 
saw him in her very own home, made her utter the 
conventional words, — “Certainly, I shall be very 
happy,” so reluctantly, that sharply-perceptive Dolly 
divined at once what it was that caused the hesitation. 

“ She is in love with him still ; how dare she be? 
She shall smart for her silliness.” 

To let Miss Herries and Captain Stafford see sufficient 
of each other to tempt them to wish to see more ; 
to put them off their guard by the appearance, on her 
own part, of being entirely unsuspicious of the exist- 
ence of any deep feeling between ; to lure one or other, 
or perhaps both of them, to the display of some emotion 
or interest which they had no right to entertain, — 
this was the plan vaguely forming itself in Dolly s 
mind for the punishment of the two people who 
asked nothing more now than they might keep apart. 

17 


258 the honourable jane. 

The possibility of leading them on to say or do some- 
thing which would put either of them in a false posi- 
tion, and give them the appearance of wronging her, 
was as water in a dry land to Dolly. She could con- 
ceive nothing more piqua7it, in the way of small re- 
venge and retaliation, than to be able to taunt her 
husband for a folly that would be a twin to the one 
he had accused her of committing. She could bring 
forth no more pleasing picture than that of standing 
as an injured wife, hedged about with all the majesty 
of her rights, over Jane, and crushing the latter to the 
earth. To be able to say words to her husband about 
Jane Herries which would make him writhe with 
wrath and shame, and which he would not be able to 
disprove, would give that zest to Dolly s life which 
had been lacking in it since Paul Wyndham had let 
himself be bought off her. Beyond the desire to 
compromise and humiliate Miss Herries and Harry, 
Dolly’s ambition did not vault at present ; but she was 
quite ready to turn every unexpected incident, and the 
force of any character she could control, against them, 
if she saw her way to benefiting herself thereby. 

The Staffords had fallen into the way of seeing even 
less of each other than they had done in the early 
days of their married misery. He spent nearly all 
his time at his club, for nothing bored Dolly more 
than to feel that she was liable to him at any hour of 
the day. Theatres bored her too, unless some other 
man than her husband escorted her. Accordingly he 
had ceased to ask her to accompany him to what was 
his favourite form of amusement. He hated dining 
at home, unless he had some friends dining with him, 
who were distractingly entertaining enough to make 
him forget his wife’s presence for the time. And 
Dolly hated his coming home to dinner, unless he 
brought some man with him who would pour his soul 
out to her in flattery and presents. 

Under these circumstances, spending so much of 
their lives apart, though one roof covered them, it 
was a difficult matter to bring her husband and Miss 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A A/E. 259 

Herries into collision without raising the suspicion of 
motive in his mind. However, she contrived to do 
it without any active agency on her part being 
apparent. 

A feverish cold, terminating in a sharp attack of 
neuralgia in her face, served as an excuse for writing 
a note to Jane, asking her to “come to afternoon tea, 
aiul charitably cheer up a woman who did not deserve 
so much charity at her hands, but who would plead 
sharp pain, and sad, sad dulness as her excuse for the 
liberty.’' To accede to the request was a very small 
thing to do, Jane thought. , After all, the woman in 
sharp pain and sad dulness was Harry Stafford’s 
“wife.” And to aid his “dog” even Miss Herries 
would have put herself to personal inconvenience. 
So, providing herself with the fairest flowers that she 
could afford, and the liveliest book she could find in 
Mudie’s list, she went at her sick and suffering rival’s 
perfidious call. 

Dolly’s drawing-room had the look -that even a 
beautifully furnished room gets which is inhabited and 
thoroughly permeated by a woman who loves to ac- 
quire' every pretty and expensive thing she sees, but 
who has not the fine art-of assimilating these when 
she becomes possessed of them. The incongruities 
were numerous, but not artistic ; and Dolly, pretty 
and fashionably attired as she was, failed to harmonise 
them. On the present occasion, she was neither 
pretty nor fashionably attired. Her face was puffed 
with pain, and she wore her tea-gown with a dolo- 
rous disregard of the adjustment of its lines to her 
figure. She felt a little ashamed of herself for having 
got her guest with intent to damage the latter, event- 
ually, when that guest came in with the new book 
and fresh flowers, and the words, — 

“ We like each other better than I thought we did, 
Dolly, or you wouldn’t have sent for me now, and I 
shouldn’t have come. ” 

As she spoke she put the flowers lightly down, with- 
out any fussy arrangement of them, where Dolly 


26o the honourable jane. 

could see and smell them. Then she took off her 
gloves, and put her slim, cool hands on Dolly’s ach- 
ing head and face. In a sudden gush of good, regret- 
ful feeling, Dolly was nciirly saying, — 

I won’t engross your time this afternoon, as my 
husband has promised to come and sit with me,” but 
the moment for saying it ])assed before Dolly could 
speak the words. So Jane sat soothing Dolly’s pain 
with tender touches ; and Captain Stafh)rd coming in 
presently, expecting to l)e greeted with re]')roaches by 
Dolly because he had not come in before, found Jane 
thus employed, and felt annoyance at the spectacle. 


CHAPTER SL. X.VIII . 

“ ’twas a net.” 

Annoyance at the spectacle was the first sensation 
Harry Stafford experienced. He had killed the feel- 
ing of acute dislike to his wife which had been engen- 
dered in him when she revealed herself fully to him 
in the early days of their marriage, but in place of 
this there existed nothing warmer than a cold, nega- 
tive indifference, which could readily be fanned into 
aversion again. Dolly would have been a disappoint- 
ment to him in many ways, even if she had not been 
unprincipled enough to have foisted herself on him 
for life by a fraud. Beneath the soft, fair skin and the 
innocently-childish, starry eyes there were no hidden 
depths of either tenderness, devotion, sympathy or 
intelligence. Dolly was essentially a summer-hour 
woman. She liked people precisely in proportion to 
their power and willingness to conduce to her com- 
fort, pleasure and well-being, to the exclusion of every 
consideration for every other human being than her- 
self. She also liked ruling, directing, obtaining the 
mastery over and trampling upon those about her by 
unfair means in preference to fair ones. She was 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


261 


eminently untruthful both in word and deed, invari- 
ably taking the tortuous lying path, even when the 
straight veracious one was open to her. She was 
shallow, selfish and vain. She had neither the wish 
nor the power of entering into her husband s higher 
aspirations, or sympathising with his efforts to achieve 
them. She was not even proud of the way he had 
distinguished himself in the service, and sneered at 
the way in which he was now struggling to make his 
mark as a journalist — a struggle which was nearly 
crowned with success in these days, when his path 
again crossed that of Miss Herries. In a word, Dolly 
was a thing made up of fair flesh, false' feelings, fine 
clothes and frailty ; and her husband knew her for 
what she was, and felt for her accordingly. 

It jarred upon all that was best in his nature to see 
even the appearance of intimacy between such a 
woman as he knew his wife to be and one whom he 
loved and respected as he did Jane Herries. He 
made no attempt to delude or humbug himself by 
shallow sophistries, such as the pretence that the 
love had died out— killed by a sense of honour and 
duty. The love was there — strong, deep, passionate, 
as it had been that night in the conservatory when he 
had told her of it, claimed hers in return, and kissed 
her. It had gone astray and wandered after other 
women since that day ; been befogged and lost for a 
time. But it had lived through everything, and it 
beat in his heart, through every fibre of his being, 
through every sensation of his soul, strong, deep and 
passionate as ever, now that he met her again. 

He was a man to whom half measures were intol- 
erable. Half a loaf never theoretically appealed to 
him as being better than no bread. Across such a 
barrier as his wife, it was hideous to him to have to 
contemplate Jane. Reason would have told him that, 
as it was Jane's bright, sympathetic intellect and soul 
he chiefly adored, he might have enjoyed these things 
to the full on the neutral ground of friendship. But 
he did not ask reason anything about it, and would 


262 the honourable jane. 

not have listened had reason volunteered the informa- 
tion. He was “ no hero, but a man ; ” and he knew, < 
though it would be entrancing to live under the in- 
fluence of her intellect and soul, that this would only 
be the half loaf which never sufficed to him after all. 
Her sweet, winning, enthralling bodily presence, the 
face that had a look for him which no other man had 
won from it, the form that had throbbed in his arms 
for one wild minute, and held itself sacred to him 
since, it was these, the essentially human part of her, 
that made intercourse across the hateful barrier intol- 
erable to him. 

Savage, restless, disquieted with Dolly for subject- 
ing him to this further unnecessary trial, he seemed 
to Jane to be a morose and gloomy man that day. 
His manner to his wife was distantly polite. To 
Miss Herries herself it was painfully distant, at least 
it was so until, as she was bidding him good-bye, his 
eyes met hers for one unlucky moment, and then it 
became bitterly suggestive. 

Mrs. Stafford caught the look as it sped, and though 
she hated her husband, it resuscitated her apparently 
dead malignity. He still preferred this Miss Herries 
to herself,” the woman who so infinitely preferred 
Paul Wyndham to him felt angrily. Well, his foot- 
steps should become entangled, and he should be in 
danger of falling, too, if she could bring such an end 
about. Then, perhaps, when this end was com- 
passed, he would be sorry he had scorned and been 
harsh to her for her little fleeting fancy for and folly 
about Paul Wyndham. 

“Dear Paul, you and I will be revenged upon 
them all, and have the laugh against them all yet,” 
Mrs. Stafford thought, as her husband, at her request, 
went out with Miss Herries to see her safely home. 
Dolly, settling herself among her cushions, with the 
amusing novel in her hand and Jane’s flowers filling 
the air about her with their fragrance, was quite 
happy, quite satisfied with the turn things were tak- 
ing. That her husband would come in presently 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


263 

more morose and gloomy than he had gone out she 
anticipated ; but she did not mind. She rather liked 
to be able to complain of him with the shadow of a 
cause to Paul Wyndham, whom she had trained to 
regard Stafford as a brute. She rather liked to see 
the chains she had forged herself about him galling 
the husband who had never even feigned to love her. 
She more than rather liked the prospect of seeing 
Jane — the sister of the woman who had dared to 
marry Paul Wyndham — tumble into a pit of her 
(Dolly’s) digging. She longed to see that “honour,” 
of which Harry Stafford was so justly proud, which 
he had never sullied yet, dragged in the mud by his 
own hand. She felt, in fact, happy as a little scor- 
pion, who sees before it the probability of stinging 
several people during one brief fling ; and, as many 
hours passed before her husband returned, she en- 
joyed her happiness undisturbedly. 

She dined at her usual hour, hugging the conviction 
to her heart that Harry “was staying with that odious 
girl — complaining of me probably, and pleading for 
her friendly sympathy.” “/ know what friendly 
sympathy comes to when people have been in love 
with each other, ” she thought, as she worked through 
the courses of her delicate little dinner. It had never 
been the custom of this unhappy couple to spend 
any time together alone which they could possibly 
avoid. Captain Stafford’s work on the press, and as 
the compiler and editor of a valuable quarterly mili- 
tary record, obliged him to spend much of his time 
at his club, or at chambers which he had established 
for the sake of writing in peace, without let or hin- 
drance from the partner of his domestic joys and 
expenses, and this arrangement had always been 
agreeable to Dolly. She had her own small gossip- 
ing coterie, and, until lately, she had Paul Wyndham 
whenever she choose to order him up. There were 
no jealous qualms assailing her about Harry. He 
might go where he liked, flirt with and love the iiiil- 
lion if he liked, disgrace himself by so doing if he 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


264 

liked. Dolly had been quite indifferent as to what 
he did hitherto. But this night she was not indiffer- 
ent. She hoped that even now he might be flirting 
with Jane Herries, and that his evil inclinations might 
lead him on to love her and disgrace them both. It 
would be such a stunning blow to the Herries’ pride ! 
Such a splendid Nemesis to overtake the unscrupulous 
gambler who had got his relations to buy Paul Wynd- 
ham away from her (Dolly).. 

It was very late that night before Captain Stafford 
came home. So late that the lights were out in Dolly’s 
chamber, and the fair occupant was sleeping as 
soundly as if she had not just been planning and 
hoping for the ruin of fellow-creatures who had never 
done her anything but good. His conscience was 
very clear as he turned to his own room, though the 
early dawn was stealing over the world. He had 
seen Miss Herries safely to the door of her home, 
and taken leave of her with as much emotion^ as a 
morally-disposed fish might have displayed. He had 
then, feeling unequal to Dolly, dined at his club ; and 
afterwards he had gone to his chambers, and written 
for many hours lucidly, and even brilliantly, on a 
subject about which he had been feeling a dejected 
inability to write powerfully for some time. It was 
a military subject, which demanded erudition, experi- 
ence and subtle tact in order to deal with it prop- 
erly, and he had been specially requested to treat it 
by a leading journal. It was a subject about which 
Jane Herries knew positively nothing, yet it was a 
few words from her which had spurred him on to his 
success this night. He had been telling her of the 
stagnation of his ideas, of his sudden, inexplicable 
difficulty in arousing them, marshalling them into 
order, and making them subservient to his intense de- 
sire to be lucid and strong enough to stir the official 
mind and instruct the British public. When he had 
finished, Jane had merely said, — 

You will do it. You’re born to command every- 
thing, including your own ideas and manner of ex- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


265 

pressing them, ” but she looked at him as she said them, 
and he read in her eyes the intensity and fervour of 
her sincerity and utter belief in him. 

“ Thank you ! ” he said, and then — well — then they 
parted, in body at least, with a very quiet clasp of the 
hands ; and so, nought but good came of that first 
meeting. 

Nought but outward good at least. But possibly 
there may be a doubt felt as to whether the blankness, 
the chill sense of desolation, the hungry desire to see 
him again, the dread of having to go through many 
weary days, perhaps even weeks, before she realised 
this desire, which succeeded her first exaltation after 
parting with him, was altogether good for Jane. 

It was awful to her, to feel the fact of his being 
married made no manner of difference to the way in 
which she regarded him, both with her eyes and heart. 
Every change of expression which had fleeted across 
his handsome, careworn face this afternoon had 
stamped itself in lines of fire vividly on her mind. 
How she longed to know what had drawn those lines ! 
how even more she longed to have the privilege, the 
right, above all, the opportunity, of trying to eradicate 
them ! A hundred times that night she breathed the 
words, — ‘‘ I could die to make him happy.” A hun- 
dred times the fatuousness of the proposal struck her, 
and she admitted that what she really wanted was, 
that she might be permitted to live to make him happy ! 
Oh ! why had Dolly been born to lower such a crest, to 
mar such a life as his } Why, as Dolly was to be the 
arbiter of his destinies, was she (Jane) unfortunate 
enough to have been entangled in them ever so 
slightly .? 

Naturally none of these questions received any sat- 
isfactory answer, for they were replied to by the 
questioner herself. 

“ I should have revolted from myself in horror once 
if I had thought I could ever feel this for another 
woman’s husband. I revolt in horror from myself 
now, but I love him all the same,” the spirit of truth 


266 


THE HONOURABLE /ANE. 


within her said repeatedly. But she strove to quench 
the spirit of truth, and when she got up in the morn- 
ing, chilled, weak and depressed, she said to herself 
that “ it was only friendship she felt for him — warm 
friendship, nothing more ! ” 

There was more safety in the soul-felt admission of 
the night than in the cooler calculation of the morning. 
The one had been wrung from her by a potent sway 
which she could not resist, the other was the offspring 
of expediency. Under the guise of friendship she 
might be with him, listen to him, sympathise with 
him, urge him on, interest herself and show her inter- 
est in him frequently without fear or reproach. So 
friendship was the better part, and in friendship it was 
fated they should soon meet again. 

Meantime, young Mrs. Wyndham, who was noth- 
ing if not versatile, was giving all those most nearly 
connected with her an anxious time. She had wearied 
of the Wyndhams and the Wyndhams’ ways. She 
had conceived a supreme contempt, especially for 
that member of the Wyndham family who had sold 
himself into matrimonial bondage to her, in order 
that his debts might be paid, and his idolatry about 
Mrs. Stafford condoned. Florence was sick to death 
of Redhill and its sumptuously respectable routine. 
She had with renewed funds resumed friendly relations 
with the Penarths, and the happy nights she spent 
in town with them, losing everything she could lay 
her hands upon, made the Redhill life flavourless and 
eventually nauseating to her. “ PoorGeofs ” habits 
of yielding to her in everything, and letting her squan- 
der his money, stood out in strong and favourable re- 
lief against what she considered the dastardly way in 
which young Wyndham dared to inquire into and at- 
tempt to limit her expenditure. He wanted the money 
with which he was freely endowed by his uncle, to 
conduce to his own pleasures, in truth, while Flor- 
ence felt that as, but for her, he would not have been 
so endowed, he had less right to it than she had. 
Accordingly, they quarrelled and taunted one another, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


267 

and, as the husband held the power of the purse, it 
soon came about that Florence had to come pleading 
to Jane for sums of money which were essential to 
“carry her over ” some desperate crisis. With her 
pleadings she always mingled promises of speedy re- 
payment. But these promises were never kept, and 
Jane, in consequence of her sister’s flattering reliance 
on her, was often in sore straits to meet the just 
demands made upon herself. 

“I must make money for myself. I can draw. I 
wonder if Captain Stafford will help me to sell my 
drawings .? ’’ Jane thought. 

So runs the world away ! — the wicked, entrapping 
world ! 


CHAPTER 'f. IX . 

THE BARRIER RECEDES. 

Has it ever been the hap of any one who reads these 
pages to have come to the point at which the roads 
leading respectively to good and to evil diverge } 
Has it, further, been that one’s lot to stand there un- 
advised, unfriended, and, to all appearance, entirely 
irresponsible to every one for what may occur which- 
ever path one may elect to take .? To stand there 
with the feeling that no one cares, that no one heeds, 
and that no one has the slightest right to institute 
inquiry. 

Some such feeling as this was upon the Honour- 
able Jane Herries on a blusterous March morning, 
some few months after that meeting with Captain 
Stafford, which has been recently described. She 
had seen him several times during the interim, and 
had arrived at a full understanding of his domestic 
position without his having explained it to her in so 
many words. Nor, to do him justice bad he even 
attempted to indicate it to her. But his misery had 
escaped from him inadvcTtently, and manifested 


268 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


itself clearly and forcibly to the one who would rather 
have seen any other spectacle in the world than this 
special manifestation. She understood him, in fact, 
and showed that she did so with that fatal facility 
which is a snare to men and a curse to women. He 
had fallen into the habit of telling her about many of 
the unimportant, and some of the important, items 
which made up the sum of his daily life ; and she had 
fallen into the habit of first expecting, then longing 
for, and finally almost demanding to hear them. 
Before she knew what she was about or wanted, she 
had arrived at the pass of feeling herself wronged if 
she even so much as suspected that he was keeping 
anything back from her. This exacting mood of hers 
was all in the way of that friendship which they each 
professed, and each tried to feel for the other. At 
least she tried to feel it and nothing more for him, or 
thought that she did so. As for him, it is impossible 
to say what a man either does feel or tries to feel 
when he sees that a woman, for whom he has a 
strong passion, is absorbingly in love with him. 

Jane had become regularly established as an artist 
on the staff of a well-known publishing firm, which 
encourages art as liberally as it does literature, to aid 
in the supply of the unceasing stream of those charm- 
ingly illustrated children s and other story books for 
which there is such an incessant demand. Her work 
occupied much of her time necessarily, and she 
laboured at it indefatigably. But it must be confessed 
that the strongest motive which influenced her in 
doing this was the hope that he would see it, be 
pleased with it, and be proud to feel that he it was 
who had urged her to cultivate her talent and turn it 
to account. She felt almost as if he had created the 
power in her ; and this feeling, coupled with the fact 
that he had actually and practically introduced her to 
her employers, added gratitude to the list of dangerous 
emotions which possessed her with regard to him. 

Moreover, the exigencies of her profession frequent- 
ly brought her into contact ^vith him without design. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


269 

The Military Record, of which he was proprietor, 
editor and compiler, was published by the firm for 
which she drew. This circumstance always threw a 
halo over her visits to the publishing- office ; for, if he 
was not there when she went in, there was always 
the possibility that he might come at any moment ; 
and, when he did appear — “Was it joy? or was it 
woe ? or was it both together ? " as the old song asks, 
that she felt. 

After a time the possibility became a probability, 
for she fell into the habit of taking her drawings regu- 
larly on a certain day of the week, and this day he 
found was the most convenient for him to go to the 
office and look over the slips and proofs of those ser- 
vice communications which he received from all 
quarters of the globe. There was no understanding 
between them to do this. It was a coincidence for 
which neither of them was accountable. A coinci- 
dence, indeed, of which neither of them had any con- 
sciousness for a time, as they did not happen to meet 
for some weeks. Though they were at the publishing 
house at the same time, they were in different offices ; 
and though each had an instinct that the other was 
there, they did not meet. 

But there had come a day when they had taken 
their departures simultaneously, ^walked away to- 
gether, and, after this — well the day on which she 
carried her drawings to the office became the day of 
the week on which she lived. The other days she 
worked and thought of him, repented of her thoughts, 
dreamed of him when she slept, and woke to feel 
penitent and remorseful, and to think of him again. 

This special March morning she had taken her 
drawings as usual to the artistic editor of the house, 
and had received payment that was sweet, and praises 
that were sweeter, for them. But she was taking her 
way home with a sense of disappointment, for Cap- 
tain Stafford had not been there, or, if he was there 
he had made no effort to see her. On fine days 
recently it had been his custom to walk wdth her 


THE HOMOURABLE JANE, 


270 

through Piccadilly and the Park, nearly as far as her 
home in Kensington ; and these walks had grown to 
be sweet as stolen kisses to poor Jane. There could 
be no harm, she argued, in walking in these public 
places with the man who was her friend, and who 
“was happier with her, he told her, than with any 
one else. No “harm,” and so much throbbing joy 
in it, though prolonged pedestrian performances did 
not commend themselves to her on ordinary occasions. 

This day a stinging sense of being neglected, per- 
haps forgotten by him, set in after the first disappoint- 
ment had passed over. She was trying to reason 
with herself, trying to feel that she was not only 
wrong, but a fool, for supposing that he would go on 
for ever, or even for long, giving up so much of his 
time and attention to a woman who was nothing to 
him, “absolutely nothing.” She muttered the last 
two words half aloud, as people are apt to do under 
the influence of painful excitement, when desirous of 
convincing or assuring themselves of something. As 
the echo of her words died away on her ears, some 
one stepped quickly up to her side, and the voice that 
had the sweetest music in the world in its tone for 
her said, 

“I am so sorry I was late. 1 just missed you. Let 
me walk all the way home with you to make up 
for it.” 

Her eyes shone with joy. The delight of seeing 
him after all, of finding that- he was not neglecting, 
not forgetting her, the prospect of having him all to 
herself for the next hour at least, threw her so off her 
guard that she let her tongue speak what her heart 
felt for once. 

‘ ‘ I thought I shouldn’t see you to-day, and I was 
miserable. What made you late, Harry .? ” 

In her agitation she was unconscious that she had 
called him by his first name. She had never done so 
before ; but he was determined she should never go 
back from doing so now. 

“One of my wife’s confounded caprices made me 


' THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


27 


late. She has taken it into her head that the London 
smuts are settling on her lungs, and insists on hav- 
ing a cottage on the river, near Maidenhead. She 
pretends to think that it would be possible for me to 
do my journalistic work there, and so kicked up a 
sham row this morning when I told her that, as she 
had taken it without consulting me, she must go 
down by herself. She doesn’t want me there, I know 
that. But what enrages me is her confounded dupli- 
city. Why couldn’t she have said she wanted to go 
without me .? I’d have let her go fast enough.” 

Jane’s heart had been thumping vehemently during 
this speech — thumping so, that she was afraid he 
would hear it. She could not help being horribly 
glad that the woman who did not love him, and 
whom he did not love, had gone away for a time. 

‘ ‘ It would allow him to do his work better, ” she told 
herself mendaciously. Aloud she said, — 

“1 quite see that you couldn’t do such work as 
yours so far away from town. Of course, you must 
be up to date. But won’t you find it dull alone.? 
Won’t you miss her ? ” 

He laughed. 

I shall miss her so much, that I dare not let my- 
self think of the day she will come back ! As for 
being dull, you’ll be kind, and let me come and see 
you sometimes, won’t you ? ” 

Her lips trembled out an assent. 

“ Begin being kind now. Take me home and give 
me some luncheon, and show me your drawings. ” 
They had come to Rotten Row, and were leaning 
over the rails, looking at the riders. As he spoke, a 
man passing them at a slow pace checked his horse 

suddenly, and cried out, 

“Couldn’t believe my eyes that it was you, Staf- 
ford, with my wife’s sister. Hallo, Jane, what are 
you about ? You wouldn’t lunch with Flo to-day, so 
she told me, because you were so hard at work, or 
had to go to ‘an office,’ or something. I never 
heard it called ‘ hard work ’ to stroll about and talk to 


272 THE HONOURABLE JANE. 

Stafford before by any woman ! And is the Park your 
office ? ” 

Paul Wyndham was the speaker, of course. 

Paul Wyndham, faultlessly dressed, faultlessly 
mounted, looking blithe, dehonnair, and as uncon- 
scious of all things unpleasant as if ho were not well 
aware that his name had been coupled rather serious- 
ly with the worthless little wife of the man he had 
been partly addressing. 

“ I had done my work at the office, and was going 
home to do more, when I met Captain Stafford by 
accident, and he very kindly walked on with me,” 
Jane said, feebly attempting that most fatal of all 
things — an explanation — to a person who is disposed 
to chaff one. 

“Ah, well, I won’t make a third and spoil sport ! 

By the way, Stafford, .1 shall take the liberty of call- 
ing on Mrs. Stafford with a couple of stalls for the 
Lyceum to-night. I hope she may be able to use 
them? ” 

“ Mrs. Stafford is out of town,” Stafford said surlily. 

He had not the faintest sensation of either love or 
jealousy for his wife, but intuition taught him that 
this young fellow was quite as well acquainted with 
Dolly’s movements as he was himself, and the attempt 
to throw dust in his eyes made him savage. 

“Shall I send them to you, Jane, as Mrs. Stafford 
can’t use them?” Wyndham went on, and Jane 
replied, — 

“If you will send Florence with them, I shall be 
glad to go. ” 

“1 never answer for or interfere with my wife; 
any fellow’s a fool who does that,” Wyndham said, 
raising his hat with a gay laugh, and riding off. 

“It strikes me that any fellow is a fool to have a 
wife at all, since he invariably fails to get the one he 
wants. Come, have you had enough of this ? Let 
us get out of the Park, and I’ll put you in a hansom, 
and take you home. The wind has tired you, I can • 
see, Jane.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 273 

She started and trembled with pleasure as he spoke 
her name. Over and over again she had longed to 
hear him call her by it, though it was not a pretty 
one. It was her own, and his uttering it showed that 
he had no overwhelming aversion to it, besides im- 
parting an interest to it which it had lacked hitherto. 

She submitted to being put in a hansom, and taken 
home by him, without a murmur. When they sat 
down to luncheon in her quaint little dining-room, in 
which antique German and Venetian glass was piled 
up picturesquely on carved black oak buffets, while 
baskets and bowls of violets filled the room with the 
freshness of spring, he thought that it was the dain- 
tiest meal he had ever tasted, and that she was the 
sweetest hostess in the world. 


CHAPTER X X . 

* ‘ don’t say that ! ” 

They sat a long time over that luncheon, eating little 
and saying much. The table was a round one, and 
they were opposite to one another, with only some 
low bowls full of violets, among which some palest 
green Liberty silk was twisted, between them. Jane 
had grown surprisingly artistic in all her arrange- 
ments, considering the forlorn ugliness by which she 
had been encompassed in her youth. Everything 
about her was dainty in itself, and acquired a daintier 
aspect when she touched it. ' It seemed to Harry 
Stafford’s enamoured eyes that the damask was 
whiter and glossier, the silver and glass more 
gleamy and bright, and. the violets deeper in hue 
and richer in perfume, than any damask, silver, glass 
and violets had ever been before. It was a little bit 
of Arcadia to him, and he let her know that it was so 
by asking her suddenly, — 

“Do you know Mackworth Praed’s ‘ Utopia’? " 

18 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


274 

“I have read it/’ she said demurely; but she 
blushed and smiled, and showed in the language of 
his thoughts, “she knew what he was driving at” 
“You must do more than read it once ; you must 
read it with me and know it. These cutlets, for in- 
stance ! I’ve often tasted decent cutlets before, but 
I know now what Praed meant when he sang, — 

“ ‘ The kitchens there had richer roast, the sheep 
wore whiter wool.’” 

“That’s not the verse I like best,” interrupted Jane, 
“it deals with eating; there are sweeter things in 
the world than eating. / like the one that tells how 
he 


“ ‘ Had a vision yesternight 

Of a lovelier land than this. 

Where heaven was clothed in warmth and light, 
Where earth was full of bliss. 

And every tree was rich with fruits. 

And every field with flowers, 

And every zephyr wakened lutes 
In passion-haunted bowers.’ ” 

It was a dangerous quotation to have made, con- 
sidering their own case, and she felt that she had 
been foolish and had given herself away, when he 
said eagerly, — 

“The verses that tell my story as plainly as I 
could write it myself are the two last. Shall I say 
them to you .? ” 

“Yes — no — I mean — yes,” she said. 

“I shall take the liberty of paraphrasing them 
slightly, very slightly, so as to make them state my 
case accurately. I’ll only alter a pronoun or tv/o, — 

“ * It was an idle dream ! but thou 
The worshipped one wert there, 

With thy clear dark eyes and beaming brow, 

White neck and floating hair. 

And oh ! I had an honest heart. 

And a house of Portland stone, 

And thou wert dear, as still thou art. 

And more than dear, my own 1 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


275 


“ ‘ Oh ! bitterness ! the morning broke 
Alike for boor and bard ; 

And I was married when I woke, 

And all the rest was marred. 

And toil and trouble, noise and steam, 
Came back with the coming ray ; 
And if I thought the dead could dream 
I’d hang myself to-day.’ ” 


She made an effort to speak, but the effort began 
and ended in a spasmodic gulp. She felt that her 
face was burning, and that tears which nearly scorched 
her were trembling in her eyes. Why had he said it ? 
Why had he told her so plainly .? Why had he beat 
aside the flimsy veil of shallow pretence of friendship 
only between them, behind which she had found 
such fancied security ? Why had he done this .? Yet 
she could not feel angry with him for doing it, or 
even sorry that he had done it, while he sat looking 
at her with eyes full of such unutterable love. All at 
once she broke the dreadful spell of conscious love- 
stricken silence, by rising and saying, — 

‘ ‘ Let us come into the drawing-room. My draw- 
ings are there, and I want you to look at them, and 
criticise.” 

She hurried him along, thinking that the slight 
change of atmosphere and of scene would drive the 
dangerous thoughts he had put into both their heads 
away. And he followed her readily, well contented 
to be led by her, and to be with her anywhere ! any- 
where ! 

It may as well be told at once, that the difference 
in the atmosphere was so imperceptible, the change of 
scene so slight, that their thoughts received no dis- 
persing shock. She tingled just as much when he 
stood close to her, looking over her shoulder at the 
drawings as she held them up for his inspection, one 
after the other, as she had done while the roundtable 
and bowls of violets intervened between them. 

Hurriedly, nervously, but ah ! so happily, she 
went bn explaining drawing after drawing, sketch 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


276 

after sketch to him, and he held them up with her to 
steady them, so that sometimes their hands touched, 
and the touch sent an electric thrill throughout Jane’s 
system. She tried to fight against the feeling that 
the thrill was one of pleasure. She tried to make her- 
self believe that she cared no more for this brief 
converse and contact with him than she would have 
done had he been an unattractive agent engaged in 
valuing her works. 

But she did not succeed in deceiving herself, and 
still she stood there before her large portfolio showing 
him her pictures. 

Presently she came upon a little group or series, 
which she tried awkwardly enough to push aside out 
of sight ; but he was too quick for her. 

“Let me see them,” with that tone and air of 
authority which is sO delicious to a woman from a 
man she loves. 

He took the little packet of water-colour drawings 
away from her unresisting hands, and looked them 
over one by one with a sharp, incisive sense of delight 
which he had never ejcperieiiced in looking at water- 
colour drawings before. 

The first he devoured with his eyes was an interior 
— a room redolent of colour and carnations, with two 
figures in the foreground — two badly-drawn but 
strikingly vigorous figures — portraits, as he looked 
at them more closely he discovered, of Jane and him- 
self. 

Then came a series of flower studies — violets of 
all kinds, chiefly Neapolitan, lilies of the valley, gar- 
denia, yellow roses and cowslips. 

These were marked “Mine.” Then came another 
little series marked “ His.” They were honeysuckle, 
white heather, myrtle, “white” bluebell, and the 
little wild geranium ; and each one of these was 
delicately painted by the hand of an artist and love ! 

“You have not forgotten my flower-lesson, I see, 
darling ! ” he said, seizing the slender hands which 
were holding the drawings up for inspection ; and the 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


277 

hands were as unresisting as the heart, as she turned 
her head towards him, murmuring, — 

“ I have never forgotten anything — anything that 
you have said or done to me ! ’ 

I'he March wind came boisterously into the room 
through a carelessly opened window as she spoke, 
and outside dead leaves that had been full of beauty, 
youth and hope once, were being whirled away to 
destruction. 

“Kiss me, my .sweet ! kiss me, my own! My 
love of my life ! my very soul’s being I my best self ! 
what is there between us but a horrible sham, a 
shameful fraud ? ” 

“Ah 1 but that is your wife,’’ she moaned. “Take 
your arms away, take your lips away, take your 
heart away from me, Harry, or I shall think I am 
dragging you down to hell ! ” 

She fell on her knees at his feet as she spoke, and 
he stood away from her, aghast at the conquest he 
had made, and the misery that conquest carried in 
its train. He dared not call her his “own ” or “dar- 
ling ” now. This abased woman, grovelling under 
the sense of her shame, the shame he had brought 
upon her, held him aloof from her as no other human 
power could have done. 

She rose at length, there was no longer any 
strength in her to pour tears from her eyes, or plead 
for quarter from this enemy to whom she longed to 
surrender. She was sobbing, but not hysterical, 
when she stood upon her feet at last. She was 
perfect mistress of her words and meaning when she 
said, — 

“ It is all my fault, it has been mine from the begin- 
ning ; but go now, and there will be no harm done 
to any one but ourselves. Go now 1 go now I ” 

“ How easy it is for you to say that,” he said, and 
it was the only cruel speech he made to her in his life. 

“ Easy I ” She caught his hands and held them to 
her eyes, her forehead, her lips, her heart. “Easyl 
is it ‘ easy ’ for me to hurt you 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


278 

His arms were round her, and his lips were seal- 
ing hers before she could finish her sentence, but in a 
moment she had slid from his embrace and got her- 
self apart from him. 

“1 wouldn’t unlive a moment of it, I wouldn’t 
have a bit of it undone,” she panted out. “Feel 
that, understand that. No pain, no misery, no 
wretchedness and suffering that may come to me 
after this will blot out this joy — that you love me.” 

“ I have been a brute.” 

“No, you haven’t, you have yourself, the 
only man I could ever love, the only man I have ever 
known worth loving, all through. Ah ! dear ! ” she 
cried, coming back to him with a little imploring 
gesture of her small nervous hands, that was infinite- 
ly pathetic and touching. “ Don’t regret ! don’t be 
sorry that we have met and been what we are to each 
other, though we must part now ” 

“Don’t try to teach me philosophy, for Heaven’s 
sake,” he interrupted. “ Hear me ! Let me tell you 
what my life will be without you now. You shall 
listen. You know what a cursed existence I have led 
since that woman tricked me into marrying her. 
You know how I have lost faith, hope, honour, every- 
thing. You know how I have fallen — no, thank God, 
you ^don’t know that, or you wouldn’t have given 
me this dear love of yours which is raising my soul 
from the depths of the nethermost hell to Paradise 
again. You know all this, and knowing it, will you 
let cold prudence, worldly caution, fear of the world, 
step between us } Reflect before you cast me back 
upon that black ocean of despair, rudderless.” 

What Jane’s answer to this might have been cannot 
be known, for at the moment Florence flung herself 
into the room with the look of distressed pleading on 
her face, which was its habitual ‘ ‘ wear ’’ when she 
visited her sister. 

‘ ‘ 1 want you to dine and go to the theatre to-night 
with me, Jane.? — Captain Stafford! You in town.? 
I wish I had kept a stall to offer’ you, but I’ve given 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


279 

them to a couple of the Penarth's men. I thought 
you were down at 

“ Down at where ? ” he asked, as she paused in a 
little confusion. 

“ Oh ! I don’t know, I am mixing you up with some 
one else, from whom Paul had one of his endless tele- 
grams. What sweet drawings ! Little pig that you 
are, never to give me any of them. What a pretty, 
cosy corner ! Why, it’s Captain Stafford and yourself 
standing in it, Jane ! Where is it Whose house .? 
Give me that picture of the white heather ! You 
won’t ! Oh ! You greedy little thing ; isn’t she greedy, 
Captain Stafford, not to give her only sister even so 
much as one little paltry water-colour drawing.” 

“Is Paul coming to the theatre with us.? ’’asked 
Jane. 

“ Paul ! not a bit of it. Paul has got a duty fit on, 
and has gone down to see the uncle and aunt at Red- 
hill. Don’t you pity me. Captain Stafford, for being 
a grass-widow ? ” 

Some foolish impulse moved Jane to say, — 

“Captain Stafford ought to sympathise with you, 
he is a grass-widower. Mrs. Stafford has gone down 
into the country.” 

“ Has she really ? ” Florence cried, flashing out an 
amused smile. “How very odd! and both of us 
bereft ones come to you for consolation, Jane.” 

She laughed gaily, but not maliciously, as she 
spoke. Florence was never malicious unless she 
actually gained something by being so. In the pres- 
ent instance she would have gained nothing, for her 
object was to please and gratify Jane, as she wanted 
a small loan from the latter, not to annoy her. Ac- 
cordingly her words, though they went home, did not 
sting as they would have done had she uttered them 
in malice prepense. 

“ I have had all the consolation I am ever likely to 
have from Miss Herries,” Stafford said bitterly; and 
Jane almost whimpered as she said, — 

‘ • Don’t say that ! don’t leave me with words like 
that, Harry.” 


28o 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


CHAPTER XX I* 

“ AH ! SO PLEASANT. ” 

Down at Maidenhead, in a little cottage near to the 
river, Mrs. Stafford was having a very merry time. 
She was “ roughing it,” as she termed it, with only 
one partially deaf and entirely stupid female servant. 
Roughing it apparently agreed with Harry Stafford’s 
inconsistent wife, for she grew, after a few days' so- 
journ there, much more lively and amusing than she 
had ever been in her life before. 

There was a spice of deception in the arrangement 
which made it very savoury to her. Every day Paul 
Wyndham came down- and took her on the river, when 
the sun shone with anything approaching warmth, 
and when there was no wind. On other days not 
quite so fine as these, he drove hei about the neigh- 
bourhood ; and then she had the thrilling sensation of 
the possibility of meeting some one who knew her or 
Paul, or her husband or Paul's wife, and of mischief 
being made of it. 

Paul always went back to town by a train that 
would take him home in time for dinner. Captain 
Stafford never came down till the evening. Dolly did 
not think it of moment at all that Mr. Wyndham's 
visits should be mentioned, consequently she said 
nothing about them. On his side, her husband was 
tongue-tied from making any inquiries, by the new- 
born knowledge he had, that he himself was not 
altogether without reproach, as far as being faithless 
in heart and thought went. 

^ The restraint this knowledge put upon his impa- 
tience and temper made him deal more gently with 
Dolly in these days than be had ever done before. 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A HE. 


281 


He did not like her a bit better than he had ever done, 
but he made more allowance for certain defects m her 
mental and moral organisation than he had ever made 
before. He had always known that the only passion 
she possessed was vanity ; but he had not always 
taken into consideration that she was as incapable of 
feeling emotions of either gratitude or affection, as a 
fish or a reptile. 

She was absolutely devoid of all sense of honour, 
too. To fail in attaining any end she had in view 
seemed to her a disgraceful thing ; but, honestly, she 
felt no disgrace in stooping to any deception or sub- 
terfuge, or uttering any lie, to attain it. In fact, she 
was as devoid of all sense of moral responsibility as 
are the beasts that perish ; and, unlike some of these 
beasts, she was incapable of forming any warm at- 
tachment. In fact, she had the lowest possible human 
nature, cased in an attractive human body ; and at 
last Harry Stafford admitted that he had been the one 
to be blamed chiefly for their union, in that he had 
not discerned this grim truth before he had allowed 
himself to be coerced into marrying her. 

The feeling which prompted Dolly to encourage 
Paul Wyndham’s visits and attentions had not a 
spark of warmth in it. She liked him to come, 
partly because many people suspected there was 
wrong in his doing so, and partly because he never 
came without bringing her something pretty or nice ! 
Dolly loved his presents. Her eyes would grow 
lustrous, her colour deepen, and her whole face light 
up at the sight of a new ring or brooch, or dainty 
casket of French chocolate. He, being blinded by 
his infatuation, to the wants and defects of her 
nature, took these for signs of love for himself, and 
contrasted her “delicious sensibility” with the gay, 
good-tempered indifference his far more beautiful 
wife displayed towards his presence or absence, very 
much to the disadvantage of Florence. 

Naturally, Paul Wyndham had told Dolly of that 
meeting with her husband and Jane Herries in the 


282 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


park which has been mentioned, and Dolly put the 
matter aside for future use carefully. It would be 
delightful to have it ready in her hand to fling in his 
face some day when he annoyed her or thwarted 
her, or when some one else annoyed or thwarted her 
and he happened to be by to have her vengeance 
wreaked on him. It would be delightful to say 
something so insulting of Jane Kerries, that her 
(Dolly’s) husband’s blood would boil with impotent 
wrath, impotent because the mere fact of his cham- 
pioning Jane would justify Dolly in saying some- 
thing still more insulting ! So she packed away the 
incident in one of the secret chambers of her 
memory, and led even Wyndham to believe that she 
had forgotten all about it. 

Her opportunity might be long in arriving, but it 
would come some day, she told herself in faith. 
Some day she would be able to taunt and gibe at and 
mock her husband for what she would assume to be 
his and Jane’s frailty. It would be a rare return for 
the scorn of her which he had shown when first he 
learnt what a lying network of dishonour and -dis- 
grace she had woven in order to entrap him into 
marrying her. 

While Dolly was boating and driving about in a 
little pony-carriage with Paul Wyndham, and matur- 
ing a scheme of revenge all by herself, Captain 
vStaftord and Jane were trying to make each other 
believe that they had forgotten the brief madness which 
had seized them both while looking at her sketches 
of the flowers he had told her she must love. 

“ It would be ridiculous and insulting to her as 
well,” he argued with himself, “to avoid seeing her 
after what had happened. It would be brutal, 
indeed ; for the dear girl had confessed that his 
friendly companionship had become very dear to her, 
and as it was his fault that the wave of imprudence 
liad swept over and threatened to destroy them for a 
minute, it certainly behoved him to see that she was 
not punished for it ever so lightly.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


283 

In according with these specious arguments — which 
did not seem specious to him at all, poor fellow ! 
but “thoroughly straightforward and manly’’ — he 
did not “avoid” her. On the contrary, he saw 
more of her than before, for Florence s light-hearted 
affable demands for “trifling aid,” were like an ava- 
lanche in their property of rolling on and acquiring 
force and velocity. This necessitated the widening 
of her borders in the field of illustrative art on Jane’s 
part. There was no one to whom she could apply 
for fresh introductions, and good, sound, critical 
recommendations, save Harry Stafford. And she did 
apply to him with the sweet sense that it was a bliss- 
ful thing to be helped by him, and that the bliss of 
the transaction was not confined to herself alone. 

One day he showed her some lines he had just 
written and was about to publish. 

“They will show you,” he said, “what my ideas 
are about the bond that can exist, and does often 
exist, between a man and a woman. I believe it 
exists between us, for instance,” he added, trying to 
look her steadily in the face. “We’re splendid 
chums and comrades, are we not, without any boshy 
sentimentality about it ? ” 

“ Yes, without any boshy sentimentality about it,” 
Jane echoed, hoping that she did not look as pale as 
she felt. 

‘ ‘ Shall I read them to you, or will you like to look 
over them yourself ” 

“ I think you shall read them. I am apt to stumble 
over manuscript, and verses are things that must not 
be stumbled over.” 

.“ I have called them ‘ Brief,’” he said, and then he 
read the following lines, while her heart sank lower 
and lower with each word he spoke : — 

Festooned with a thousand fancies 
It is passing pretty times, 

Brightened by a dozen pleasures 
Born in that fair, friendly clime, 

Where we met ! 


284 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


Ah ! the lightness ot our greeting, 

Sure, y&t piquant, sunny, clear; 

All the understanding in us 
Went to show us, tho’ so near, 

“Strangers yet ! ” 

’Twas your wit that took my fancy, 

’Twas my sympathy that drew 
You towards your fellow labourer 
In the old days still so new. 

When we met ! 


Ah ! the laughter, sound and cheery, 
Won from knowledge that no laws 
Of the frigid world could fetter. 

Union from sheer friendship’s cause. 
As love’s net ! 


But our feet ne’er stumbled in it, 

Hand in hand we trod the way. 

That was pleasant while it lasted ; 

Ah, so pleasant ! Bless the day 

When we met ! 

Life has stores of sunny pleasures, 

If we take them when we can. 

One, perhaps the best of all, is 
For a woman and a man 

To forget ! 

Some one had come into the room, with much soft 
rustling of silken garments, as he was reading, but 
the rustling had not been heard, and a screen had 
concealed her from their view. Now, before Jane 
could offer an opinion about th^ verses, which, truth 
to tell, gave her far more pain than pleasure, the 
visitor came forward, blooming, beautiful, full of 
health, hope and happiness, with the words, — 

“Charming, indeed, Harry Stafford! I had no 
idea I had been entertaining a bard unaware, all 
these years that I have known you. Are they not 
charming, Jane ? " 

“I hardly know what they mean,” Jane said 
bluntly ; at which Helen — for of course the bloom- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 285 

ing, beautiful, -very inopportune visitor was Helen — 
laughed and said, — 

“That’s why they are so charming! They may 
mean anything, everything or nothing. Now explain 
yourselves, please. What have you both been doing 
all the time I have been away.?” 

“First tell us where you have been, and what you 
have been doing ; travellers’ tales are more interest- 
ing than the records of the stay-at-homes.” 

“The stay-at-homes seem to have made consid- 
erable progress since I left,” Helen said, laughing 
significantly. “ I have no objection, though, to own 
up about myself during my absence. I went to 
New York to find out for myself whether a certain 
person whom I thought dead was really so, as I have 
received a threatening letter saying he had come to life. 
Lucky it was for me that I did so, for I bowled the 
imposter over at once. It was my first husband’s 
trusted friend who did me the honour of attempting 
to personate him, and draw hush money from me. 
It was a contemptibly easy battle to win. I felt 
it was breaking a butterfly on the wheel, when the 
wretch grovelled at my feet and, with maudlin tears, 
implored me not to give him up to justice for the at- 
tempted fraud. He had not calculated on my having 
the energy to go out and face the situation myself” 

“Tell us morel Poor Helen, why didn’t you ask 
me to help you ? With all the pleasure in life I would 
have gone to New York and horsewhipped the 
scoundrel.” 

‘ ‘ I did better than ask you to help me — I asked the 
spirits,” Helen said mysteriously. “ They helped me, 
they advised and guided me.” 

“ The spirits 1 ” 

“I am a spiritualist — I forgot to tell you that,” she 
continued, trying to conceal under a casual manner 
her intense dread that they were going to laugh at her. 
“Don’t begin to turn the subject into ridicule, for I 
am in earnest and have inquired, and you are 
sceptical and know nothing about it. I am guided 


286 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


now in every action of my life by my guardian spirits. 
1 consult them about everything/’ 

There was silence for a few moments. Captain 
Stafford was too much of a gentleman to offer a word 
or look of derision, of a subject of which he knew 
himself to be, as Helen had said, profoundly ignorant. 
While, as for Jane, she was too much absorbed in 
the reflections which Harry Stafford’s poem, of what 
sounded to her like renunciation, had given rise to, 
to be able to grasp with understanding anything that 
Helen was saying. 

“I have had no experience, as you say, of spiritu- 
alism, but I am interested in it ; every one must be 
interested in the occult, whether he be a believer or 
only an inquirer,” Stafford said gravely, and Helen 
replied eagerly, — 

“ Would you like to have experience Would you 
like to come to my house to-night, where a private 
medium, a lady, is going to sit for me, and see and 
hear for yourself ? Will you come .? ” 

“Gladly, and with gratitude to you for giving me 
the opportunity.” 

“You shall come too, Jane. You shall go home 
with me and see for yourself that I hold no communi- 
cation with the medium before Harry Stafford comes. 
Under the influence of some of her ‘ controls ’ she is 
clairvoyante. She may tell you things about your- 
self that are pleasant or that are painful, but whatever 
else they are they will be true. ” 

“For my part, I will promise to come with a per- 
fectly unbiassed mind,” Captain Stafford said; and 
then the conversation drifted into other channels, and 
the reunited friends spoke freely of former days. But 
.-^ddly enough, neither he nor Helen said one word 
about his ill-starred marriage or his wife. 

In pursuance of the plan she had herself proposed, 
for the purpose of protecting her from holding any 
private intercourse with the medium before his arrival, 
Helen took Jane back with her, and in due course the 
evening and the medium arrived. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 287 

She was a woman of middle height and proportions, 
with a delicate pathetic face, and a gentle retiring 
manner. Her voice was singularly soft and low, 
and it was evidently a physical effort to her to raise it 
ever so slightly. For the rest, she was dressed in 
one of those admirably cut black silk gowns, which 
fit their wearer like a sheath. Her health had been 
very bad for some time, she told Jane, and the truth 
of this statement was evidenced by the hot dry feel- 
ing of her rather small hands. Her grey eyes were 
lacking in lustre, but there was a good deal of colour 
in her face, a colour that waned and waxed perpetually, 
and that spoke far more of weakness than of health. 

After Lady Roydmore had told her briefly that 
“Captain Stafford, an old friend of mine, an igno- 
ramus about spiritualism, but neither prejudiced nor 
sceptical, is coming,” Mrs. Keith, the medium said, — 

“It is more than eight years since I have sat as a 
medium at all, as my husband objected to it, for some 
reason which he was never able to lucidly explain. 
My powers may be very much weaker than of 
old, when I never ‘ sat ’ without spirits materialising 
themselves and walking about the room. But at any- 
rate we shall have a good seance, I think, for ‘ Peter,’ 
who is always with me, has promised he will speak, 
and, if possible, show himself.” 

All this was jargon to Jane Herries, who, not real- 
ising that “ Peter” was a spirit, thought it only ex- 
tremely odd that he should “always be with Mrs. 
Keith, and yet make bones about showing himself.” 
However, her eyes were opened to this and many 
another mystery before that night was over. 

The drawing-room in which they sat awaiting 
Captain Stafford’s arrival was the ordinary London 
double room, with a portiere where the folding-doors 
had once been. Flowers, and a huge cage of birds, 
filled a conservatory at the back of the smaller room. 
Three bull-dog puppies, and as many broken-haired 
Irish terriers, tumbled about on the hearth-rug, and 
filled the room with a good strong atmosphere of 


288 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


(logg-y-life. Two or three lamps burnt brightly in dif- 
ferent parts of the room. 

‘‘This surely can't be the chamber of horrors/’ 
Jane thought ; ‘‘ there are no preparations/* 


CHAPTER X/. 1 1 . 

“is vis 10 ns a bout.” 

Before she had time to speculate about this any 
longer, Jane heard the firm, soldierly step that she 
would have recognised amidst a thousand in the hall, 
and the next instant Captain Stafford came in, and 
after a hurried introduction to the delicate and 
fatigued-looking medium, the business of the evening 
began. 

“You know nothing about spiritualism, and are 
perhaps both suspicious and sceptical ? ” Mrs. Keith 
said to him, in her gentle, soft tones. “I am quite 
willing to submit to any tests you please. You may 
bind me in the chair in which I shall presently seat 
myself ; you may seal me down with your own seal ; 
you may, if you please, place a tumbler full of water 
on my lap, in order that you may discover whether I 
move or not, even when I am bound and sealed.” 

“Thanks,” he said briefly ; “I have implicit confi- 
dence in the integrity of the proceedings, and would 
not think of insulting you and Lady Roydmore, and 
degrading myself, by acting as if I suspected a fraud.” 

She smiled quietly. 

‘ ‘ There is fraud and charlatanism in everything. I 
should like you to have the evidence of all your 
senses that the manifestations which will, I hope, 
appear through me to-night are genuine.” 

“I shall believe my eyes, my ears, and you,” he 
said, very courteously. 

And then she swiftly passed through the curtains 
into the back room, seated herself in a large chair in 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


289 

which she could lie back in a recumbent attitude, 
closed her eyes, and, as the curtains were drawn 
together by Lady Roydmore, gave vent to a gasping 
sigh that would have told the initiated she was 
already being entranced by one of her controlling 
spirits. 

The lamps were turned down a little, but there was 
still sufficient light to see not only every form, but 
every colour distinctly. A small aperture about five 
feet five or six from the ground had been left in the 
curtains when Lady Roydmore pinned them together. 
The dogs had been banished from the room, as they 
were apt to get distraught and terrified “directly the 
supernatural element prevailed,’' their mistress ex- 
plained. There was dead silence in the room for a 
few seconds only ; then a deep, stentorian voice, which 
reverberated through the room, and almost shook 
the rafters, shouted out from behind the curtain, — 

“ Good evening ! Nettie’s gone into a trance ; bul 
she ain’t well, and so there won’t be no very good 
manifestations to-night.” 

‘ ‘ Who is it speaking .? ” Lady Roydmore cried, and 
the rough, fesonant voice roared out, — 

“Peter! The abbess will come presently, and 
maybe Florence Maple. She’ll sing for you if she 
comes. Lor’, she have a purty voice of her own. 
She wor a singer in Dublin by purfession, she were ; 
hadn’t a happy life of it, poor thing ; a bad husband, 
you know. Many of ’em have.” 

Peter sank his voice to tones of indescribable ten- 
derness as he said this ; and then Captain Stafford 
asked him a question concerning himself (Peter) 
which brought forth the following reply in a merry, 
big voice, — 

“I were a costermonger in the Marybone Road, I 
were, before I passed over. Sold carrots, and turnips 
and things like they. I passed over when I was 
eighteen. Here comes Florence Maple.” 

Even as he spoke a tiny voice interrupted him with 
the words, — 


19 


290 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“Good evening. I am here. I will try to sing 
presently, when I have got more strength from the 
medium." 

And immediately after, a small, pallid, shadowy 
face came to the opening of the curtain, and looked 
out at them piteously with large, brilliant eyes. 

Meantime, Peter was talking, laughing and crack- 
ing jokes with two other spirit voices in a most 
remarkable way. The one declared himself to be the 
spirit of a long-deceased vicar of Putney ; and his 
oily, unctuous accents were suggestive of a clerical 
school which is extinct, it is to be hoped. The other 
avowed himself to be the Pope, and the third joined 
in with a quavering cackle that seemed to endorse 
the statement that its owner was a very aged abbess. 

This was exciting enough at first, but after a time, 
though Lady Roydmore was absorbingly interested 
in it all, a certain sense of monotony settled down 
upon the souls both of Captain Stafford and Jane. 

“Won’t you ask Peter something about yourself? " 
the latter whispered to him. “I should believe it 
more than I do now if he told you anything about 
yourself, for this medium doesn’t know you." 

‘ ‘ Peter, can you tell me if I am married or not ? ” 
Captain Stafford asked ; and the answer came 
promptly, with a chuckle, — 

“Very much married. Oh, ye’es." 

“Is my wife here to-night?" he went on. 

“No, she ain’t," Peter responded drily and delib- 
erately ; “but it don’t matter. She’s happy enough ; 
she don’t want you." 

“ Are you sure of that ? " 

I’m sure enough. She’s got somebody else’s hus- 
band a-giving her his cheerful company. They’ve 
been on the river to-day. ’’ 

“ I don’t want to hear any more about the past ; 
tell me of the present and the future," Captain Staf- 
ford put in impatiently. “Shall I be able to break 
away entirely from a person I like, for that person’s 
good and my own ? " 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


291 

If you get out of hailing range you will, not else,” 
Peter said, with decision. “ You’ll have to get out of 
reach of that person’s pleading looks and pretty ways 
afore you do it ; and I ain’t sure that you’ll do it even 
then,” Peter said thoughtfully. 

‘‘ Is that person a man or woman ” Harry Stafford 
asked boldly ; and Peter answered, — 

“I know, but I ain’t a-goin’ to say. I spare 
people’s feelings. ” 

His last words were drowned by a burst of song 
from Florence Maple, who sang in a powerful high 
soprano a song called “Whip poor Will.” Presently 
Peter joined in the strain, and then the vicar of Put- 
ney and the abbess cut in, and altogether Lady Royd- 
more’s neighbours must have thought some awful 
orgie was going on. 

The song soon came to an end, and there were pal- 
pitations visible against the curtains, as if the singers 
were pulsating with the vocal exercise they had taken. 
They were heard fanning themselves vigorously, too, 
just as mere mortals might ; but this, one of them 
presently explained, was not fanning themselves, but 
fanning the medium, “who was very greatly and 
painfully exhausted.” 

“Nettie must be brought out of her trance soon ; 
have you anything more to ask before I bring her 
round ? ” Peter roared out presently, and Captain 
Stafford said hurriedly, — 

“Am I in any personal danger at present, or in the 
immediate future .? You needn’t be afraid to answer 
me, the consideration of ^ personal ’ danger does 
not affect me very much.” 

“You’re in horful danger, in danger you may live 
through ; the end’s not clear to me, but it will leave 
its mark on you for life, if it doesn’t kill you. It’s 
danger by water. The floods are round you, I see, 
and you’re trying to save a life you don’t prize. ” 

“Is that my own life, Peter.?” Captain Stafford 
asked sadly, but Peter only roared out, “Good-night, 
see to Nettie ; ” and as Lady Roydmore darted forward, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


292 

and flung open the curtains, they saw nothing but 
the medium reclining as they had left her in the big 
lounge chair, and still steeped in a deep sleep. 

She was roused and recovered herself soon after 
this, and came back into the front room looking pale 
and weary. She spoke animatedly, though, and in- 
quired with interest what they had seen and heard. 
Her delight was unfeigned when she was told that it 
had been a successful seance. 

“ I know nothing that takes place from the moment 
I am entranced ; and sometimes it is quite painful 
when I come back and find people are disappointed 
and disbelieving, simply because they have heard 
and seen nothing. Have you been satisfied and con- 
vinced .? ” she added, turning to Captain Stafford. 

“ Satisfied, and almost convinced,*' he replied. “ I 
asked one question about myself— not a leading 
question — and it was answered curiously.” 

“What was the question.?” asked Mrs. Keith. 

“ I asked if I was married.” 

‘ ‘ And are you .? ” 

“ Peter told me I was ‘ very much married.’ ” 

“But are you .? ” she persisted. 

“lam.” 

“ I am glad Peter didn’t make a mistake,” she said, 
smiling gently ; “he very rarely does. Did you hear 
much more from him about yourself.?” 

‘ ‘ He suggested a water trouble to me. Perhaps I 
shall find the pipes burst when I get home to-night,” 
he said lightly. 

But Mrs. Keith gave no smile in response to his ; 
she only continued to look at him gravely and steadily, 
till he said ‘ *' good-night ” to them all, and took his 
departure. 

The warning note, the sad, sickening note of sep- 
aration had been struck, Jane intuitively felt, in those 
verses which he had called “Brief,” and read to her. 

‘ ‘ It was all very well for him to do this for the 
best,” she told herself pettishly. All very well for 
him to protect her from himself by parting from her, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


293 

but did he know, did he feel, did he care what this 
parting meant for her ? He would go out into the 
busy world of men and women, and go on having, 
as he had always had, comradeship from the former, 
and smiles from the latter. He would have his work, 
too, and his work was so much more engrossing than 
hers. While he was writing on military grievances, 
'he had to be very accurate as to his statistics and 
facts, and the necessity for this accuracy left him 
little or no time to brood. Besides this, he had his 
diversions, and men’s diversions are infinitely more 
diverting than women’s. She had her drawing, to be 
sure, and her coterie of lady friends. But over the 
drawing she had plenty of time for moods and brood- 
ing, while as for the lady friends, what woman does 
not know how utterly inadequate a score of women 
are to supply the place of the one man } 

His resolution to carry out this deed of separation 
had been arrived at suddenly, and carried out with 
characteristic rapidity. As has been told, for a time 
after that lapse into the lunacy of showing their love 
for one another, he had decided to make no difference 
in his manner to Jane, but to go on in just the same 
old friendly grooves. But a word whispered here, 
and a smile smiled there, had altered his decision. 
He recoiled from the possibility of harming her, as 
he would from the brink of a precipice. He knew 
that if they met often, now that each knew the other’s 
heart, they would meet once too often, and after that 
Jane would suffer. He knew the purity and pride 
which were balancing qualities in that hot, impet- 
uous, trusting passionate nature of hers. And 
knowing these things, he felt that, if he would not be 
her destroyer, he must be her defender — against 
himself ! 

So, feeling that the danger was so imminent that 
in instant action only there would be any chance of 
safety, he withdrew himself almost entirely from the 
society and the scenes in which he would be likely 
to meet her. By^ doing this he dealt her a blow 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


294 

which made her turn and writhe in hot resentment 
at “his cruelty” for a time. But, after a time, she 
forced herself to look at things in a clearer light, and 
tried to “ think that she thought ” there was more love 
in his leaving her than there would have been in his 
clasping her hand in his, and taking her closely 
along with him on the downward path. 

But it was a miserable time, and, while it was 
passing, the spring came and went, and gave place 
to a summer that seemed to have been borrowed 
from the south, it was so full of the strength of 
beauty, colour, fragrance and warmth. 

It found Jane still vainly trying to forget, as he had 
advised her to do in that last line of his little poem, 
and it found Dolly still at Maidenhead, occupying 
herself in much the same way as she had occupied 
herself four months before. 

She boated more than she had done in the early 
spring, going out frequently quite by herself in a tiny 
boat, when Paul Wyndham was not able to accom- 
pany her. She found it much nicer to take her 
luncheon to a leafy, secluded backwater and eat it 
there, than to stay at home in the cottage and hear 
her partially deaf and wholly stupid servant warble at 
her work. The walls of the cottage were but of lath 
and plaster, and the servant had a high, whining 
voice, no e’ar, and chronic snuffles. In the deep, leafy 
shades of her pet backwater, there was nothing to 
disturb her save a lark soaring up to heaven’s own 
gate over the cornfield on the back, and a water rat 
or stoat sculling about among the reeds and rushes 
by the side by her boat. Tourists rarely penetrated 
into this backwater, for the channel that led to it 
was difficult to navigate, and it had a legend wherein 
desperate depths and forests of cruel, crawling weeds 
were assigned to it. But Dolly took no heed of this 
legend. She liked the dull blackness of the pool, and 
was glad that no one but herself and Wyndham came 
to float upon it. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


295 


CHAPTER mr. XX///. 

There was not a particle of pleasure mingled with 
the surprise Jane felt when, on going home one morn- 
ing, she was greeted with the information that “ the 
gentleman was waiting for her in the drawing-room ; ” 
and, glancing at the card put into her hand simul- 
taneously, she saw on it the name of Mr, Barker. 

It annoyed her that he should have come, not be- 
cause she feared any recurrence of the “sentimental 
folly ” of which he had been guilty in Mount Edge- 
cumbe Park, but because it bored her inexpressibly 
that any man should come and lay waste her time 
now that Harry Stafford refrained from engrossing 
any of it. It bored her to think that, as they would 
have nothing else to talk about, Mr. Barker would 
probably insist on raking over the ashes of the past, 
and commenting on the folly of which Captain Staf- 
ford had been guilty in marrying the unscrupulous 
Dolly. 

“ If he only knew how very much rather I would 
that he had stayed away, he wouldn't demean him- 
self by waiting to see me, ” she thought, as she ran 
upstairs, and for a moment or two she nearly yielded 
to the temptation of not letting him know she had 
come home, and so wearing out his patience. But 
this was rather a mean impulse, and she would not 
give way to it. 

She took off her hat and gloves very leisurely, and 
glanced towards her study door lingeringly, longing 
to get rid of Mr. Barker and go into it, and begin 
making sketches for the illustrations of a pretty fan- 
ciful story that had lately been put into her hands. 
He was such an uninteresting, uncalled for, alto- 
gether superfluous interruption to the steady rush of 


THE HOHO C/E ABLE /A HE. 


296 

work on which she was being borne along. It cost 
her an effort to pass that door and go on to the 
drawing-room, and the effort clouded her face 
ominously ; there was not the slightest gleam of the 
light of welcome m it as she advanced to meet him. 

He almost sprang towards her, with all his old 
graceful impulsiveness ; but even at the first glance 
she saw how much manlier and finer he had grown 
in the years that had passed since they had last met. 
He looked wonderfully well, happy and prosperous, 
too, and she was not astonished when he told her 
presently that he had been practising in Chelsea suc- 
cessfully for more than two years, and that recently 
he had established name, fame and fortune as an 
aurist. 

“ I have always been hoping that fate, or chance, 
or some old friend would give me the clue to finding 
you again, but I dared not hope I should still find 
you Miss Herries,"' he told her ; and Jane tried to nip 
the budding sentimentality by saying, — 

“If you don’t meet me again for the. next fifty 
years, you will find me Miss Herries at the end of 
that time. May I ask how you found me out now?’' 

“I met Captain Stafford at dinner last night; he 
gave me your address, and was kind enough to say 
that he thought you would be glad to see me.” 

Jane’s face scorched with the fire of the angry 
blood that rushed up to it. This was showing his 
indifference, his contemptuous indifference to her, 
with a vengeance ! 

‘ ‘ Captain Stafford was extremely kind to take so 
much trouble,” she said, so coldly that Dr. Barker felt 
that he must have offended, and looked distressed. 

“You are not annoyed with him for having given 
it to me, are you. Miss Herries?” he asked depre- 
catingly. 

“ Not annoyed, oh, no ; only you must understand 
that I am quite a professional woman now ; my time 
is not my own. I rarely receive callers in the morn- 
ing.” 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


297 

“ I will not detain you — intrude on you much 
longer. ” 

He paused, looking so pained and hurt that Jane 
repented of her manner of treating him. After all, 
why, because Harry Stafford seemed cruel to her, 
should she be cruel to this good fellow, who had 
loved her once, and evidently liked her still } If he 
would only go, she would give him such pleasant 
parting words. 

“ I don't regard a visit from such an old friend as 
you are an ‘ intrusion,' ” she said, smiling. 

“And Stafford was not to blame, I assure you,'' he 
explained. “I pressed him hard to give me your 
address. First he said he had forgotten it, but he 
searched his memory for it effectually at last. Nice 
fellow Stafford is ; it’s a thousand pities he made that 
unfortunate marriage.” 

Jane’s heart hardened again. In the first place, it 
aggrieved her that Dr. Barker should presume to speak 
of Captain Stafford as a “nice” fellow ! And in the 
second place, any allusion to his fatal folly stung her 
like a bunch of nettles. 

“ He was the best judge of what would bring him 
happiness ; he was free to choose, and he chose her 
out of all the world.” 

She spoke so bitterly that he looked at her un- 
easily. 

“Did he choose her he questioned. “I rather 
think she chose him, and tricked him into the mar- 
riage. ” 

Jane heaved an impatient sigh. 

“Did you come here to discuss Captain Stafford’s 
marriage "i ” she was nearly saying, but she checked 
herself, and said instead, — 

“ I am afraid we shall not do him much good by 
discussing the question.” 

“Indeed we will not ; and I want to discuss another 
that is of much more importance to myself” 

She looked round, praying for something to inter - 
vene, and stop what she felt sure was coming. If 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


298 

only Florence would come in and borrow money, she 
would bless her for the timely interruption. 

He saw her appealing glance at the door, and 
answered it in words. 

“I am detaining you from an important engage- 
ment, I fear; but Miss Herries — Jane, what I have 
to say I must say before you send me away. Do you 
remember that day we spent in Mount Edgecombe 
Park .? ” 

Did she remember it ? Aye, only too agonisingly 
well ! She had been foolish, blind, stupid enough 
to be jealous of Helen that day, little thinking that 
foolish, flirting, false Dolly was the rock on which 
both Harry Stafford and herself were to be wrecked. 

“I remember it well,'" she said. “The children 
were tiresome, and ran away from us.” 

“Do you remember the words I said to you then 
— the boon I craved of you t ” 

She moved her head in slow, unwilling assent. 

“I crave that boon still. I have never ceased 
loving you. I say those words again. I ask you to 
be my wife.” 

He rose up and stood before her, eager, pleading, 
resolute, manly, waiting for her answer, and it came. 

“Look at me,” she said, beginning tremulously, 
but getting firmer with each word she uttered. ‘ ‘ Look 
at me, and see that every word 1 say is true. You 
have shown me your heart, and what a good, gallant, 
true heart it is. Now I will show you mine — and my 
misery ! ” 

‘ ‘ Your — misery .? ” 

“Yes, my misery, and my folly and obstinate 
wrong-headedness. Four years ago, when you asked 
me the same question you have asked me again to- 
day, I loved a man with all the power of loving in 
me, who could have married me if he liked. He mar- 
ried some one else, however, and I — love him just 
as much to-day as I did then. ” 

‘ • Let me teach you to forget him. ” 

“Teach me to forget him ! Do you hold that com- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


299 

mon, shallow creed, that one nail knocks out another? 
If you do, I feel less sorry for you than I did a minute 
ago, when I feared you might have some trouble in 
forgetting me. Forget him ! Why I love him, I tell 
you, against reason, hope and honour ! I love him ! 
We never forget what we love ! ” 

“You say you love him without hope. You feel 
the wretchedness of doing so, yet you condemn me 
to the same fate. Jane, I would not be exacting. I 
would be contented with your friendship, your com- 
panionship, anything you cared to give me, if you 
will only be my wife. Try me, trust me. Let me 
endeavour, at least, to draw your thoughts away from 
him.” 

She got up and took a photograph of Harry Stafford 
from the drawer of the table, and handed it to him, 
with the words, — 

“ That is the man I love.” 

“You are not likely to forget him. I give it up,” 
Dr. Barker said, handing her back the photograph. 
“Heine must have had my casein view when he 
wrote, — 

“ ‘ A y oting man loves a maiden. 

Who another youth prefers ; 

The other, he loves another, 

And has joined his fate to hers. 

“ It is an old, old story. 

And yet ’tis ever new ; 

And he to whom it answers. 

It breaks his heart in two,’ ” 

“You mustn't break your heart forme; Tm not 
worth it.” 

“Is he worth the heart-breaking you are going 
through?” Dr. Barker asked. “Worth counts for 
nothing. I’m afraid, in these matters. I’ll relieve you 
of my presence now, I see you want me to go ; but 
let me come again, let me see you, at least? ” 

“Will that make you one bit the happier ? No, 
Dr. Barker, I am sure that it will not. It will only 
make you restless. Better far, keep away from me.” 


300 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


“ Doesn’t it make you happier to see him ? Does 
his ‘ keeping away from you ' make you calmer, more 
contented ” 

‘‘No ; because I know he loves me too,” she inter- 
rupted ruthlessly. “Through all the thick darkness 
of my misery and folly, there comes this gleam of 
light — he loves me too.” 

“ If I could take that thought away with me, that 
you ‘love me too,’ could I bear all the rest better.? 
No ! not if you couldn’t marry me and be with me 
always. It would add to my misery to know that 
you were miserable too. As it is, I feel that /, at least, 
haven’t added to your burdens.” 

“ But how willing you are to do it ! You would be 
glad to divert my thoughts from him, and my thoughts 
of him are my only joy ! We’re all selfish, you and 
I, and everybody else, but somehow I can’t bear to 
think that your selfishness about me should hurt you. 
There are so many women in the world who are nicer, 
sweeter, cleverer, prettier than I am. Do find one of 
them, do forget me.” 

“ If I told you there were better men for the having 
than Stafford, how then .? ” 

“There are none — to my mind,” she said simply. 
“ 1 think I am about him as poor Constance was about 
Marmion ; she ‘ forfeited to be his slave, all here and 
all beyond the grave.’ She was a fool, of course, 
but I am such another fool, Dr. Barker. Now I have 
shown you my heart. You may pity me for it’s being 
so black ; but you’ll never covet it again ? ” 

“Till I die, sweet,” he said ; and then he did what 
she had been praying he would do for the last two 
hours —went away. 

When he was'gone, she began to be sorry that she 
had not been kinder to him while he was there. “ It 
would have been so easy to have made him happy 
for a time, at least, by a little bit of false pretence of 
being fond of him,” she thought for one unworthy 
minute. Then she repented rapidly and entirely, as 
she always did repent after entertaining a mean idea, 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


301 

however briefly. The kindness that would have 
made him happy would have been poisonous to him. 
It might have soothed him for a short time, but after 
that it would but have tortured him, unless 

She halted, horrified at her own thought, but it 
would not be put aside, it came again and again. It 
stood at her elbow and whispered itself into her ear 
all that day, as she sat doing her delicately-accurate 
little illustrations of impassioned love-scenes and pla- 
tonic posturings. It came between herself and her 
rest at night, while she turned from one down pillow 
to the other, in the vain attempt to keep from think- 
ing, and secure oblivion for a time. It made her 
wish that some physical pain would seize her and 
benumb her faculties for a time, till this dominating 
“thought” would pass away. But it stayed with 
her, haunted her, assailed her alternately, insidiously 
and aggressively at every turn, and it was, — 

“Why shouldn’t some one be happy.? Why 
shouldn’t I marry him, as he wants me, poor fellow .? 
I shouldn’t be wronging any one in the world but 
myself by doing it ; and what does it matter about 
me ? ” 

She had accustomed herself to the idea of doing 
this after a few days, and felt rather grimly disap- 
pointed when he did not reappear, charged with 
urgent pleadings. Not that she wanted him, but she 
wanted to make him happy. If he had only become 
blind, lame, halt and incapable on the spot, she would 
have gone to tend and serve him as a nurse, with a 
sincere sense of pleasure. She would have revelled 
in the power of making some real return to him for 
the good, thorough love he offered her. But as he 
was neither blind, lame, halt nor incapable, she must 
show her gratitude in another way, she decided, and 
after she came to this decision, it seemed to her rather 
wooden and stiff-jointed morally that he did not re- 
turn to the charge, and put his fate to the touch again. 

“ I don’t want him, but I don’t think he ought to 
have left off wanting me so soon ; ” and for a while 


302 


THE HONOURABLE JANE^. 


she thought more despondently of men, and the life 
that men make for women, than she had done before 
Dr. Barker’s reappearance upon the boards whereon 
she was playing her little part. 

At last the longing for the sympathy which he had 
been so ready to give her, and which was withheld 
from other quarters now, overcame her, and she wrote, 
not daring to think about what might be the conse- 
quences of her action : — 

“ Come and see me when you have time ; we are, 
at least, sincere friends, and you say it gives you 
happiness to see me. d'here is so little sincerity, 
friendship or happiness in the w^orld that I think we 
may fairly take all that comes in our way.” 

It was not a very encouraging invitation ; but he 
accepted h gladly. 


CHAPTER y-lV. 

THE BARRIER REMOVED. 

‘‘ Mrs. Stafford has gone down to the river, sir ; she 
has taken her luncheon with her. ” 

The partially deaf, completely stupid young woman 
who waited upon Dolly in her river-side cottage was 
the speaker,, and Captain Stafford — who for once had 
come down early in the day to see his wife — was the 
person addressed. 

He did not know which were Dolly’s favourite 
haunts on the river, but the air was flooded with 
warmth, and there was such soft, rich, vaporous 
colour over everything, that the thought of the cool 
refreshing water appealed to him pleasurably, and 
drew him irresistibly. down to the river-side. He had 
come down intending to communicate to his wife the 
recently formed determination he had come to of go- 
ing to India for a time. The question of the utilisa- 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


303 

tion of native talent in the Indian Civil Service had 
a great attraction for him, the attraction of repulsion, 
namely. In common with the majority of men who 
have done much soldiering in India, he disapproved 
of the policy which places so much of the local 
government in the hands of highly educated and 
keenly intelligent Indian gentlemen, who must be of 
necessity opposed to the dominant whites in their 
hearts. In common also with the majority of soldiers 
who have seen much of the native races, he had a 
certain amount of antipathy to them, excepting when 
they occupied the position of the governed. It dis- 
gusted him that they should be flooding our universi- 
ties and military and civil cramming establishments ; 
but of this disgust was born the desire to go to India, 
study the working of the system on the spot, and, if 
possible, write down its disadvantages with sufficient 
power to prove that our Empire in the East can no 
more be maintained in its integrity by native civil 
government than Ireland can be entrusted with safety 
in the hands of the Irish. 

He had come not only to tell his wife of his inten- 
tion, but also to ask her if she would like to accom- 
pany him. He had no wish that she should go ; in 
fact, to be honest, he would infinitely prefer going by 
himself. But she was his wife, and as such it was 
due to her, or rather to himself, that he should pay 
her the compliment of giving her the option of going 
with him or remaining behind. He had seen so little 
of Dolly lately, that he was not in that state of men- 
tal aggravation with her which had been his perpet- 
ual portion while they were living together. It is 
always difficult to keep up a sense of angry annoy- 
ance with a person who is absent, unless that per- 
son injudiciously bombards one with letters. Dolly 
abstained from this crowning act of folly, and Harry 
Stafford was sufficiently obliged to her for her forbear- 
ance to feel tolerantly towards her, as he sauntered 
along by the river on this sweet serene summer morn- 
ing. 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


304 " 

There was another cause, too, for the cessation of 
his extreme irritation against her. He had not seen 
Jane Berries for a long time, and so had got out of 
the habit of constantly contrasting her with Dolly, 
and, in consequence, finding Dolly more wanting than 
ever. Unlike the woman who loved him, he was not 
always dwelling on the thought of his love. Per- 
sonal intercourse with her would have kept up the 
fire of his passion for her. But by breaking away 
from that personal intercourse, he had dispersed the 
subtle aroma of her infiuence. The thought of her 
face no longer came between him and every fresh 
object on which he looked. There were many days 
on which he never thought of her at all, indeed ; and 
it may be added there were many days on which he 
found much sweetness and light in the society of other 
women. In short, he was no hero, as poor Jane 
thought him, but a man ! and, true to his sex, he had 
a great facility for forgetting when remembering was 
practically useless. While Jane never began nor 
finished a picture without wondering if he would 
chance to see it, and speculating as to what he would 
think of it, the recollection of her never intervened 
between him and his sharply analytical, keenly incisive 
work. His career was of just as much value to him 
as if she had shared it. If he could have taken her to 
himself, he would doubtless have been the happier by 
so much. But as he could not take her to himself, 
he got on very comfortably without her. He loved, 
as the majority of men of action love, with a strict 
adherence to the command, to take the goods the 
gods give. While Jane daily re-enacted for her own 
benefit that scene in which he had held her to his heart 
and kissed her, until she had wished for no better 
heaven than that it should be that embrace carried on 
ad infinitum, he only remembered the incident occa- 
sionally as one that had been terminated fortunately 
by the “girl recovering her head like the little brick 
she was.” 

At the same time, though he had the habit now of 


THE HONOURABLE JANE, 


305 

doing very well without her, it would have roused 
him to passionate resentment if he had heard of her 
giving herself to any other man. The thought of her 
lonely, dull, and extremely fond of himself, was one 
that he could contemplate with comparative equan- 
imity. But the thought of her lavishing sympathy and 
caresses on another man, lashed him into a jealous 
rage. With a perfectly free conscience, he could make 
himself touchingly agreeable to other women. But 
the idea of Jane ‘ ‘ running " a miscellany of male friends 
would have been revolting to him. She was ‘ ‘ his only, 
his alone,” as the song says, however many other peo- 
ple’s he might elect to be. 

He thought of her once that morning as he pushed 
his way through a thick growth of oziers and willows 
towards a big clump of bulrushes. He had heard her 
say she. wanted some to put in a picture once, and the 
idea seized him now to get some of these, and take 
them to her the next day. He would then be able to 
tell her of his contemplated new departure, and show 
her how warmly he felt for her still, by detailing all 
his plans and projects to her, and asking for her sym- 
pathy. 

did the right thing in cutting that short,” he 
thought complacently; “some fellows would have 
gone on hanging round her till it ended in a scene or 
a scandal, and we shouldn’t have parted in peace.” 

She was obliterated from his mind a moment after 
by a sight that is common enough on the river, a man 
and woman in a little boat just close under the bul- 
rushes. It was a sight that did not pain him in the 
least, nor did it cause him any surprise, for he had 
been prepared for it half unconsciously. Coming 
upon it unexpectedly, however, he called out sud- 
denly,— 

“Hallo, Dolly! just pull ” 

The sentence was arrested on his lips by a shriek 
from Dolly as she sprang up, Paul Wyndham at the 
other end of the frail boat rose to his feet also, and the 
20 


3o6 the honourable jane, 

next moment the boat had capsized, and they were 
both struggling in the water. 

In a flash Stafford’s hat and coat were off, and he 
was striking out for the place down which Dolly had 
gone like a stone. Wyndham, who could not swim 
a stroke, was hanging on to the upturned boat, shout- 
ing for help. Twice, thrice, Harry Stafford dived 
down through deep water to that swaying bed of cruel, 
crawling river weed, amidst which poor Dolly had 
got entangled. Exhaustion was setting in, for the 
fight for her with the weeds was a fierce one, and he 
feared the weeds were going to beat him and hold her 
in their strong serpentine arms against him. Finally 
he tore her from them, but when he came to the sur- 
face the woman he held in his arms was dead. 

There was a brief account of the calamity in some 
of the daily papers. Captain Stafford’s press influence 
stopped the insertion of morbid details, and even this 
brief account Jane did not see, nor did she hear of it 
through Florence Wyndham, who happened to be 
away with the Penarths at Monte Carlo at the time, 
and who was thus happily spared the shock of hear- 
ing what a narrow escape from drowning her husband 
had just had. 

Dr. Barker had obeyed Jane’s behest and gone to 
see her again, and when once the ice was broken, she 
found herself glad of his coming, and sorry for his 
going. He had seen the account of the drowning 
of Stafford’s wife, and the gallant attempted rescue by 
her husband ; but the subject was a painful one, and 
unless Jane broached it, he resolved not to do so. As 
Jane knew nothing about it, she naturally made no 
mention of it ; and Dr. Barker took this silence on her 
part as a sign that all was over between Stafford and 
the woman who shrank from speaking of him now 
that he was free. 

It was very pleasant the intercourse between these 
two people in those days. Jane’s life was a revela- 
tion to the man who had always lived in middle-class, 
Philistine society. To see a young girl, of good birth 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


307 

and great beauty, going her busy way alone among 
the marts of men, struck him strangely at first. If 
she had been a teacher of anything, struggling out, 
ill or well, wet or shine, to her pupils, it would have 
seemed quite natural, and all in the order of things to 
him. But that she should have appointments with 
all manner of men of the publishing and editorial 
world at their offices seemed to him a little incongru- 
ous. He longed to propose to transplant her to his 
o\yn prosperous, secure home, out of which she would 
never have to step “of need.” But, fearing to lose 
all by asking for too much, he possessed his soul in 
patience for just a little longer. 

“Would you change your life for any other if you 
had the power of changing it } ” he asked one day, 
and, knowing how fearlessly candid she was, he 
half-expected and half-feared that she would reply, — 
“ Yes ; to become Harry Stafford’s wife,” but, in- 
stead of this, she surprised him by saying, — 

* ‘ I think I shall change it in a measure — that is, I 
shall enlarge it. I have not been studying dramatic 
effects for my pencil and brush alone all this time. 
I am ambitious of vitalising pictures — of being an 

active figure in them ” 

“What do you mean.?” he interrupted. “You 
are a living figure in the greatest of all drama — life.” 

“ I mean that I am going on the stage. Probably 
I shall fail — the many do, you know — but, at any rate, 
I shall have the satisfact/on of feeling that I have 
tried to make my life as full of action, intelligence, 
ambition and sympathy as it can be made. I have 
no scope where I am, no outlet for what I suppose you 
will consider my wwfeminine longing to play a bigger 
and more prominent part in the world than I’ve ever 
played yet. ” 

“You are an artist, whose pictures are dear to the 
hearts of thousands, whom they move to laughter or 
to tears.” 

‘ ‘ That’s not enough ! Nothing is enough for me 
that doesn’t come home to me personally. I hate 


THE HONOURABLE JANE. 


308 

monotony, dulness and unhappiness, and in spite of 
my success in my art I am monotonous, dull and un- 
happy very often. ” 

“Jane, I am probably only courting a rebuff, but 
I must speak again on the subject that is dearer to 
me than success, fame and fortune. Let me try to 
dispel the clouds of dulness and unhappiness which 
are enveloping you 

Don't speak of it,” she pleaded. “I love that 
other man more than ever ; it hurts me that any one 
else should speak to me of love.” 

“ Does he reciprocate? He is free now.” 

“Free?” 

“Haven’t you heard? Don’t you know? His 
wife is — he has lost his wife ; ah ! how I shock you. 
Forgive me ! I thought you knew.” 

She had been standing up before her easel ; now 
she tumbled down into a chair, covering her face 
with her hands in a paroxysm of shame at the sensa- 
tions which overwhelmed her. Presently his voice 
broke the desperate stillness. 

“This is fine torture! There are some things a 
man can’t bear ; to see you moved like this at the 
mere prospect that he may come to you now ” 

“It is the only prospect I care to look at in the 
world,” she interrupted, and even as she spoke the 
door opened, and “Captain Stafford” was announced. 

The barrier was removed, and he had come. 


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THE 


HONOURABLE JANE 


ANNIE THOMAS 

AUTHOR OF 

“a passion in tatters,” “the love of a lady,” “he COMETH'^ 
NOT, SHE SAID,” “ LE BEAU SAHREUR,” “ THE ROLL OF 
HONOUR,” “THAT OTHER WOMAN,” ETC. 



NEW YORK 

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150 WORTlr ST., CUK. MISSI(.i.N IT.ACK 














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